July 11, 2025 • 38 mins
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a woman gifted, and then cursed, with foresight. Despite warning everyone about the tragedies to come, she was ignored. Modernly, this story still resonates. We talk about the history, the Cassandra complex, modern day Cassandras, and why it has such staying power.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and what kind of
stuff I never told you are protection by? I heard you,
and today we are talking about a Greek mythological figure, Cassandra,
(00:25):
who's had a huge impact and it continues to resonate
to this day. I know we've talked about this before, Samantha,
but were you Did you ever get into Greek mythology?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, so all of the encyclopedias or like Britannicas or
any of those, especially our children would have great myths
as like one of them, and I would read through
all of those. I was very fascinated with Greek myths,
Roman myths, which kind of had a whole tie into it.
So yes, I may have forgotten though quite a bit
of it though, But when you remind me like, oh.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, did you know about Cassandra?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I did not. I did not until I came into
you and said my partner said this phrase, and I
just stared at him and I was like, who's Cassandra?
And he said do you not know about this saying?
And I was like no, And.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I immediately was like here's Ally.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes. So this is a topic that is inspired by
Samantha's partner who then asked me and then I was like, yes,
let's do it. You can see I would say relevant
past episodes are why didn't you believe her? That I
did with Friend of the show and at that time
(01:45):
to post and at current moment host over on the
other podcast, I do save her and it was all
about yeah, why it was tying in the kind of
the politics of not believing women with this history that
we see in media. Also you can see the episode
we did, a book club episode we did on the
book Circe related all right, So yes, I, through your partner,
(02:14):
have learned that I guess this is coming back this
idea of I don't want to be a Cassandra or
I'm tired of being a Cassandra. This isn't new, but
it's having any resurgence, and we will talk about that
and why I think it is at the end. But yes,
I was big into Greek mythology as well. But I
(02:40):
also have told this story of many times watched the
Scream movies when I was far too young to be
watching them, and the second Scream movie when Sydney goes
to college, she is an actress and she is in
this play where she plays Sondra Yes, and she has
(03:03):
this whole scary scene where she foresees the fall of
Troy and there's lollble, lights are going wild and everybody's
wearing masks, and then of course she sees ghost Face
in there, you know. But she's saying, like, no one
believes me. I'm seeing all these horrible things and no
one believes me, And so of course I had to
look it up. I had to learn this Cassandra. So
(03:27):
that's the first time I remember learning about her. She
the play Cassandra is also the play the last play
that happens in the Last of US two in the
video game before everything shut down. In the show, it's
Sick Habit, which is a made up band in the universe,
(03:50):
but in the game it is the play Cassandra is
what is on their Kind of Theater home based Marquee.
Then just this year, Taylor No It's twenty thirty five.
Just in twenty twenty four, Taylor Swift released the song
Cassandra and I was going to read some lyrics. You're
gonna get some song lyrics.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
In here, excited. I'm not going to sing.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
I'm not going to sing. This song has been stuck
in my head though, since I've been doing this research.
So when the first stones thrown, they're screaming, and the
street there's a raging riot. When it's burned, the they're shrieking.
When the truth comes out, it's quiet. So they killed
Cassandra first because she feared the worst and tried to
tell the town. So they set my life in flames.
(04:34):
I regret to say, do you believe me now? And
then there's also an Abba song. There's actually several songs,
but these are the two that I know. Yes, So
here's some some quotes from the Abba song, pity Cassandra
that no one believed you, But then again, you were
lost from the start. Now we must suffer and sell
(04:55):
our secrets, bargain, playing smart, aching in our hearts. Sorry, Cassandra,
I misunderstand now. The last day is dawning. Some of
us wanted, but none of us would listen to the
words of warning. But on the darkest of nights, nobody
knew how to fight, and we were caught in our sleep. Son,
I mean, if you don't know the story of Cassandra,
(05:15):
I feel like you're probably getting a vibe here already, right, Yes,
I would also say just this theme is relevant in
horror movies, Like eighty percent horror movies has something that
goes along these lines. Also, this brought back a memory
for me. One of my best friends, uh we in
(05:38):
eighth grade, we tried to sneak into the R rated
film Troy.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And none of all films that one ge.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Was wearing a middle school track shirt. And so the
person selling the tickets was like, no, no, no, no,
no no. And so then we said mean girls and
bought tickets for that, and then we went to go
watch Troy. But you know, looking back, I'm like, wow,
but my whole life I could have diverged, but I
(06:13):
looked it up. I haven't seen that movie since then.
Cassandra is not in it. Yes, yes, But with all
of this this clear impact that Cassandra has had on
media on me, let's talk about the history and the myth.
So in Greek mythology, Cassandra was an intelligent, brave, mortal
(06:37):
princess of the ancient, powerful, wealthy city state of Troy,
which was located in what is now Turkey, which is
a real city by the way, you can look it up,
and was the process of Apollo who gifted her with
the ability to accurately and precisely predict the future. She
features heavily and several tragedies, including essuelas Agamemnon, which shelves
(07:01):
into her prophecies and the events leading to the fall
of Troy and her death, Euripides The Trojan Women, which
highlighted the pain and suffering of Trojan women after Troy's
fall and the injustice done to Cassandra specifically, and then
Virgil's I Need, which described the fall of Troy, fate
and Cassandra's role and all of it. She's been in
a lot of other things from that time, but those
(07:23):
were the three big ones. She was the daughter of
the last king and Queen of Troy, King Priam and
Queen Hecuba. Stepping aside a bit. Priam's father angered the
gods by not repaying them for building the wall around
Troy and other things, so they killed him and the
rest of his family, leaving only Priam alive. Priam went
(07:47):
on to have a boatload of children, perhaps up to
one hundred, including Cassandra. Like he was like, my whole
family died, I'm going to have this huge family and
hopefully someone will make it out. He also fathered Prince Paris,
who set off the Trojan War by running away with
or kidnapping Helen. Depending on what you read and how
(08:10):
you interpret it, t Yeah, yes, the wife of the
king of Sparta. So he basically, oh gosh, this is
such a complicated family story to tell, but he all right,
let me step back. I'll get to that a second.
(08:31):
Depending on what you read, Cassandra desperately tried to stop Paris,
like begging him, please do not go to Sparta, do
not have any contact with Helen, and definitely do not
bring her back to Troy. In some versions, she even
requested he be killed as an infant because she knew
his actions would lead to the downfall of Troy. Of course,
(08:55):
he didn't listen to her, and everything she foresaw came
to fruition. His abduction, slash elopement of Helen to Troy
led to the Spartans laying siege on the city. The
Trojans held off the Spartans for nine years, but the
whole area around them was kind of getting decimated and
they were taking in prisoners, and then they set up
(09:19):
this trap that led to the final blow and the
fall of Troy. Hector was another of Cassandra's siblings, the
most skilled warrior in Troy until Achilles killed him. This
is one of those episodes where I'm like, I just
don't have time to explain the history and who everyone is.
I feel like people know Achilles, at least they know
(09:40):
Achilles heel, but that's kind of a big that's kind
of a big deal, and this all kind of happened
after Hector killed achilles friend and possible lover, Patrick Collis.
Achilles was so infuriated and full of vengeance after that
that he slays Hector, drags his body around behind his
(10:02):
chariot in front of the walls of Troy, refusing to
return him to a failing for a proper burial as
was custom. However, Priam snuck into the Greek camp and
convinced Achilles to turn over his son's body, and Paris
later kills Achilles. Oh my goodness. Cassandra also has a
twin brother, Helenus, who had the power of prophecy too.
(10:26):
In some versions, Apollo gave it to him as well,
and other versions Cassandra taught him, but people believed him.
They did not believe her. He may have got his
powers from Polo, but there's a later version where they
both got their powers after they were left in Apollo's temple,
his babies and a serpent licked their ears clean so
(10:48):
that they could hear things more clearly and divine things
from nature. Most of the stuff I read said that
came much like that was somebody having fun much later
after they original were written. But I did want to
mention it because it does come up quite a bit.
And if you're already like, wait, you're giving several facts
(11:09):
that don't align, yes, because these are very old, right,
and people had a lot of versions of them.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
So right, and again like the Roman gods were similar
and had different stories but had like again similar that
they're same with different ideals, names and places, so like,
there's so many things. Because I remember being really confused.
I'm like, wait this, I've heard this story before, but
it's this and realizing it's switched up, so that, yeah,
the narrative is very different.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yes, it's just slightly different enough to be like hmm, okay, okay,
but that let us get back to the generally told version,
because this is Greek mythology. Unfortunately, for Cassandra, she was
very beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful of Priam's numerous daughters,
(11:58):
which in summer countings, is why Apollo gave her the
gift in the first place. At the time, such a
gift would have been highly revered because you know, it's
the time of ancient Greece. There's a lot of stuff
that wasn't understood. You have these guides. If you had
the power of prophecy and could see what was coming,
that would be a really valuable thing. She rejected sooner
(12:23):
after suitor incruding Apollo who made these advances towards her,
and when she rejected those advances, he accepted completely gracefully. Nope,
just kidding. He tried to take back the gift, but
discovered that gods can't take back gifts like that. It
was like a little contract like no no returns. So
(12:45):
instead he cursed her so no one would believe her prophecies.
It's a real, real class act. Yeah, so emotional. Yep,
her gift then becomes a curse if you don't know again,
Apollo is the son of Zeus, the king of the gods,
(13:06):
and he is the god of white poetry and music
and prophecy. A bunch of other stuff, but those main things.
Some recountings detail how Cassandra considered Apollo's romantic advances at first,
like she was sort of thinking about it and maybe
even encouraged them, but ultimately decided they were better off
not being together romantically. And some other versions she agreed
(13:30):
to pursue romance with him in order to get the gift,
but then fact out I would say, in any case
he's dead.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Yeah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I agree, And I mean if you just sit and
think about how terrible this is like to know what's
coming and have no one believe you. It was a
really brutal curse, and it worked. No one believed Cassandra's
vision of the future, ones that she knew were true.
(14:04):
People speculated that she'd lost her mind and may have
even imprisoned her at one point. Still, she kept trying
to convince people of the truth of her prophecies, and
this was particularly painful when it did come to some
of these huge tragedies that she foresaw that could have
been prevented if people believed her. And yes, one of
(14:26):
the most disastrous cases was when she foresaw the destruction
of Troy. She foresaw the Trojan Horse, but no one
believed her, and Troy fell, along with a lot of
her family. And I mean when it fell, almost everybody
was slaughtered. Hardly anybody escaped. She tried desperately to stop
(14:48):
the Trojans from allowing this giant wooden horse within their walls,
knowing it was full of Spartan soldiers, the best of
their soldiers, but no one listened. She took an axe
to the horse. The Trojans, who believed it was a
gift of surrender from the Spartans and a sign of
their victory, stopped her. But again she was right and
(15:09):
Troy was destroyed. Things did not get better after that
for Cassandra. She knew the destruction was coming, so she
took shelter in Athena's temple, clinging to the statue of
Athena for protection, but was discovered by Spartan soldiers. Of
the people who found her was this soldier named Ajax
the Lesser, who was second only to Achilles and his
(15:33):
abilities as a soldier. He dragged her from the altar
and viciously raped her oh why yeah in some versions,
in front of her father before they killed him. Athena
later enlisted the help of Poseidon got at the sea
for revenge on Cassandra's path because she was taking shelter
(15:54):
under Athena's protection, and he violated that. And Poseidon sank
a good portion of the Greek fleet and killed Ajax
especially Ajax survived the sinking. He was clinging to a rock,
and Persuiden was like nope and threw the trident at
the rock and killed him. This is part of the
story told in the Odyssey, by the way rough Sea's part.
(16:17):
Ajax's abduction of Cassandra is featured in a lot of
art art uh So. The Greek king Agamemnon, who was
the victor in the Trojan War, took her as a concubine,
eventually giving birth. She gave birth to twins from him.
When she tried to warn him that they would die
(16:38):
if they returned to Greece, that they would be murdered,
he didn't believe her, and the prophecy came true. Agamemnon's
wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegis. This killed them both
and the twins. Clytemnestra was angry that Agamemnon had sacrificed
(16:59):
their daughter to the gods, and that he had taken
Cassandra as a concubine, which I feel was not on her,
but okay. Depictions of her either showcase her beauty or
her absolute despair, because that is where her story ends.
Some even show her ripping her hair out because no
(17:19):
one believes what she has to say. And I would
also like to know how much of this as men
or men the gods wanting to possess a beautiful young woman,
Apollo mad at being rejected by a beautiful woman, Paris
starts a war by kidnapping Slash running off with Helen
the most beautiful mortal Woman, which was a prize he
chose from the gods. That was the part I didn't
(17:41):
get into earlier. But he had this whole thing where
he could have chosen three prizes, and the one he
chose was I want to be with the most beautiful woman.
Agamemnon enslaves Cassandra. Helenus goes on to be king. Meanwhile,
(18:10):
Cassandra's story did resonate with many, and it is one
of the most memorable. The tragedy of someone who warns
us of future danger, who is ignored, who is silenced
until it is too late is unfortunately one that many
can relate to or have seen, raising your voice, ringing
(18:31):
that warning bell, trying to protect the ones you love,
knowing what is coming, and not being able to do
anything to stop it. Like it's just a really visceral,
terrifying feeling, and I can see it would make you
feel like ripping out your hair and feel like you're
losing your minds, which brings us to the Cassandra complex.
(18:52):
So nowadays there is something called the Cassandra complex, our
Cassandra syndrome, or Cassandra phenomenon which describe situations or valid
warnings were dismissed and ignored. French philosopher Gaston Bechlar was
the first to use the term in nineteen forty nine.
Over time, it has been used in all kinds of contexts, politics, business,
(19:15):
and even things like climate change, where despite substantial evidence,
warnings are ignored. This is also true in areas where
economists predict recessions are people in tech raise questions about tech,
and then are accused of holding everyone back, like preventing progress.
When it comes to psychology, it isn't a formal diagnosis,
(19:36):
but it is often used to describe someone who feels
an impending sense of doom and can do nothing to
change it, and no one's listening to them. It is
an isolating, frightening, frustrating feeling, and just not a good feeling.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I've seen it being used in context to like no
typical people trying to talk about their partners if they
are not if they have neurodivergent diagnosis but it's not
been diagnosed yet, and no one believes the sentence. They
call that Cassandra syndrome, Like, wait, you're dignosing them from
noticing other diagnoses. I don't understand, which is an interesting concept.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
It is, and it relates to my next point. Eh.
On a more personal level, you may have seen this
kind of thrown around when you're warning a friend about
a toxic relationship and they don't listen to you. Or
as a parent, you might get warnings about your child
that you dismiss because it's uncomfortable ignoring medical advice or
(20:38):
early symptoms of something. It could be like way more
complicated than that, obviously, because the medical field we get
misdiagnoses all the time, but that kind of idea, these
are still instances that could be labeled or fall under
the Cassandra complex. There are a lot of reasons people
ignore warnings with evidence, a lot of evidence even to
(21:03):
back them up, bias, not trusting sources, doubting the credibility
of sources, group think, social pressure, just don't want to
deal with it, vibe and not thinking about the future,
and dismissing someone who is marginalized, which Cassandra. She would
(21:25):
have been more privileged as a pretty princess, but she
would have been marginalized at the time. There's also something
called the Apollo archetype, which is sort of the antithesis
that basically entails someone who is all about being reasonable.
So in this case, sort of like Helenus is making
(21:47):
these prophecies, but they're like he's reasonable, though Cassandra does
it like, oh, that's a hysterical woman that cannot be
And she did get a lot of she got a
lot of that kind of flack of she is a
woman who's got doo any emotions. We need to keep
(22:07):
her behind closed doors and we don't need to keep
her quiet. Uh huh. But she really she to her credit,
and the real tragedy of it is she never stopped trying.
She never stopped trying to prevent these things and to
warn people. It's just a shame that she had to
(22:30):
go through all of that and she knew, like, can
you imagine seeing your death coming and knowing like, oh
my god, why won't they just listen? Right right? The
death of your family. There is also another rabbit hole
you can go down if you would like, you can.
It's called real life Cassandra's. So, for instance, there are
(22:56):
diplomats who tried to stop war. There's several cases of that,
economists who tried to stop the sessions. Officials who tried
to warn about COVID.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Nobody listened, and they're still demonized.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yes, sorry, oh my gosh, I'm just trying to tell
you what's happening.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
This is what's happening. Can you do today? Is liberal
agenda to make us wear masks? Are right?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What a power? Also, somebody who just leaves like a
big wooden horse outside, open it outside.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Also like what is it like? Why would you like
this so much? That's a wooden horse, sir, Yeah, it's
not like it's marble.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
We don't need to bring it in, leave it out.
There was no need, no need at all. Then, you know.
Also historically we do have hysteria, which was the thing,
hysterical emotional woman that we don't believe. It was a
thing in the sense that people thought that's what was
going on or it's not really what was going on.
(24:08):
And then presently things like not believing women when it
comes to health or anything or anything, right, which brings
me to the next one, hashtag me too. Yeah, that
was another example where for so long women have been saying,
you know, hey, this is a real problem, and then
(24:28):
when it finally unleashes online becomes this big movement, it's
a witch hunt. It's all these women who are trying
to like punish men.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Can't be nice or we're gonna be told that we're
being harassing. Sir, we know what nice is. This is
not it?
Speaker 1 (24:48):
No, no, it's not. And do you think this is fun?
Like this is a miserable, painful experience.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Right, The fact that mostly women are being ostracized and
fired or being pushed out because they have been harassed
and actually wanted to stop it.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, and we have, unfortunately, I mean, in some
ways fortunately, I guess, but in a lot of ways unfortunately,
we have some pretty high profile sexual assault plus a
lot of other thing cases going on right now in
the US.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I mean, people like pe did it just got Yeah,
And a.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Lot of the discourse around it is like look at
these women, right, but uh kind of another example of
that is whistleblers. I would say, who will say, you know,
this is a this is a real problem and are
just completely often completely ignored, are silenced. And this is
(25:50):
a bigger issue than for this episode, but it is
really related this whole idea of like dismantling expertise when
it's inconvenient. So when your expertise is saying I can
go about living my life, I love that. That's great.
I don't have to make any changes. But when it's
saying this is a real problem you need we all
(26:11):
need to make a change, then it's oh, who do
you think you are? What do you really know?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Right? Choosing much change doesn't exist? What are you talking about?
Big corporations? Love me, They're not polluting the world if
only you would recycle?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Right, it snowed last year, can't.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Be it's so cold now for a day? Yes?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Oh, but I mean that's also it's frustrating in terms
of the skills, like having these skills are this knowledge
and seeing these consequences of ignoring these experiences, especially of
marginalized people. It's not that no one and can't understand,
(27:02):
because some people paint it as like I read an
article about Cassandra that was wondering if maybe we've painted
Cassandras into too much of a like no one can
be on their level. But it's not that because they're
kind of they're breaking it down for you. That's like
their goals to get you to understand.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
But people just a lot of people, for one reason
or another don't listen or don't want to listen. And
that's been a long that's that's an old idea that
why do we tear down people who have knowledge? We've
done that forever and then it's sort of a shoot
(27:45):
the messenger type thing of blaming experts when their predictions
come true. Right, And some people were even talking about,
you know, why would you want to be a Cassandra
in this case because keeping your mouth shut would be
better because you'd be punished for being a Cassandra. Right, Yeah,
all killed or killed m yep. And a lot of Cassandra's,
(28:11):
especially women in marginalized folks, have been buriased but that
I mean, there are a lot of reasons why I
think it's resonating now. I think that marginalized folks feel
that they've been sounding alarmed for years and years and
years and years, and this burden of truth and this
(28:36):
kind of dealing with this whole people being annoyed. I
think kind of a backlash about do I and stuff
might be an example of this, but being annoyed, like
you're bringing too much attention to this thing. It's not
that big of a deal, but it is and it
has been. And then there's this sort of other idea
(28:58):
of people getting really angry. Do we not know this
when people did know this? Yeah, they've been saying it.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Right, we've been saying the fact that they're going after
trans people and just because you're not trans doesn't mean
it's not going to fall on you. The same thing
as they're going after the black community, and just because
you're not black doesn't mean they're not coming after you next.
It's kind of the same thing as they're going after
immigrant people. At first, it was the Muslim community saying
they're trying to protect the you know, from terrorists because
(29:25):
we have so many bad players. I'm saying that sarcastically
that they use that, and the next like they win
the Latino votes, saying that, yeah, those are the bad
people for sure. For sure they are or like queer
people for bad. And then they're like, oh wait, they're
gonna get us too, okay, and the other minorities, including
(29:46):
Asian communities, who are like, but we're fine because you know,
we're the model minority and they're getting just as many
people being deported out. You're like, ah, that was the
Cassandra call. You're not listening to when they come for all.
They will eventually when they come for one, they're going
to come for all, like it's it's happening and no
one's listening. Yeah, they really think that they're protected somehow
(30:10):
or it doesn't really affect them. That's the other part
is that like as where they just not believe them.
They just don't believe it's going to affect them personally.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
That's true. And of course I got to put in
another another NERD reference because I just do this. I
was thinking about this in another context because I feel
like there's this thing I've talked about it before called
(30:40):
the Iceman list, which is basically like if you look
back at a lot of a lot of eighties movies,
the villain kind of maybe they were a jerk but
was kind of right, Yeah, but they're they're very painted
as villainous. But a lot of times it's like you know,
the EPA guy and Ghostbusters saying, you know, hey, this
(31:01):
is not this is bad right, or like it's Goose
in top gun me, like this is not safe. I
guess what happened to Goose? Like there. I think there's
also a villainizing of Cassandra's in that way. But I
also just have to mention, Okay, there's this character name
(31:22):
Fives from Star Wars. Okay, so he he was a
Clone and he the Clones all had these chips in
their heads and that's how the Jedi were pretty much
wiped out because they couldn't sense what was coming in
the forest because the Clones didn't sense what was coming
in the force because they didn't know they had these
chips in their head. Right, But Fives found out about
(31:47):
is from the Clone Wars show. Oh okay, yes, but
I have a friend who just texted me it was like,
I cannot believe you've turned me into this Star Wars person.
And now I can't unsee all the parallels in our society.
And I was like, I know, But anyway, fives he
learns and he figures it out, and no one listens
(32:09):
to him, and they think he's like this big conspiracy theorist.
But his friends and Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi
also as friends, they're like, you know something, something is here.
We should he's a friend of ours, even if he's
this is a conspiracy theory. Something's clearly wrong, and they
(32:31):
try to help him, and then of course the old
Emperor Palpatine kills him. But he was he was sounding
that alarm and if if he had gotten that message out,
things could have gone very differently and probably much better.
So that's the peril of not listening to.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Right, this is the we live in this peril, you know,
we do.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
We do. Unfortunately, Also, as we've touched on the dangers
of being of voice of dissent, I think a lot
of people are worried about that, and so that's why
Cassandra is resonating how it feels to not be believed
is a really miserable feeling, especially if you share something
painful or maybe something you never shared so I think
(33:17):
that's one of the reasons. And having that feeling of
knowing what's coming and not being able to do about it,
like that helpless feeling that I can't stop this. That
just I think all of us are feeling that right now,
a lot of us, at least powerful people abusing power,
(33:38):
so you know, Apollo doing what he did, especially when
someone refuses to fall in line or give them with
what they want or feel entitled to because they gave
you a gift. AI and disinformation and misinformation I think now,
I think we've we've got a lot of like I
don't know what even is right right.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
There's so many videos I'm even saying that people like wait,
this is it? Maybe? Is it? No?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
No?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yes? And there's it's bad. It's already it's been bad
for a while, whether it's just misinformation that's being leaked
as fact to this to like having videos of being
like is that a real video? What is this cute
dog in bear? Is this a thing?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have I have an episode
coming up where I had to I had to really
do some digging like this, really, I just need to
make sure that this is okay, okay, all right. Yeah. Also,
I think a lot of this story is about fate,
(34:52):
so she can't stop these things. And I think for
for some people that idea is really frightening because that's
that goes back to the whole free will we can
change things versus the that's just fate, that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, I wonder if writing this tale is one of
those explainers, because it doesn't make sense why women are
so distrusted, just like in such a way that this
fairy tale is like, maybe this is why because nothing
else makes sense. It's a curse because there's no reason.
Kind of the same as the Adam and Eve tail.
(35:33):
It's kind of like, oh, we have to say this
is the reason why they're not trustworthy, or this is
the reason it's their fault. And so this kind of
aligns to explaining why we don't believe women, not just
why we shouldn't, but why we don't because nothing else
makes sense.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, I mean I would say that is a brutal punishment. Yeah,
it is a huge like punishing a woman for knowing
right what is coming, So that hats off. I mean,
that's awful. I didn't get to read the entire article,
(36:10):
but there's a piece about Virgil's depiction of Cassandra and
how sexist it was, So there's definitely I mean, if
it's coming from like ancient times, there's no part of
me that it thinks it was probably a healthy depiction
of women, right. But it is interesting how as time
(36:33):
has moved on, modern interpretations are much more like I
don't even know if you knew what you were writing, right, Yeah,
and then the final points to end on because it
kind of a bummer on some of these, but resistance,
I mean, like I said, she she didn't give up
(36:55):
even though no one believed her. She kept trying, and
her story did stick around and has lasted and has
resonated with so many people. And I'm sure you know
that's kind of amazing, right because it was a story
(37:16):
about a woman coming from that long ago very easily
could have been lost, or she would have been the
character that got kind of pushed to the side, right,
But she really wasn't.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Sad she is a metaphor, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
And I mean it's a terrible what happened in that
story to her is off.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I feel like they just always have to add this
that one, like why why why? Yeah, it was really beaten,
would have been bad enough, kidnapped pretty bad, but no,
we have to add one more. I'm okay, everything's fine.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yep. Well, listeners, If you have any thoughts about this,
I would definitely love to hear that yes, yes, any
other mythological figures we should do, or if you have
any examples of real, real world spandras that we should do,
(38:20):
please let us know. You can email us at Hello
at steffanever told You dot com. You can find us
on Blue Sky at Moustil podcast, or on Instagram and
TikTok at stuff I Never told You. We're also on
YouTube and we have a book you can get where
you get your books. Thanks as always to you, a
super ducer Christina or Executi producer and a con trooper Joey.
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never
Told You should I Heart Radio for more podcast or
(38:41):
my heart Radio. You can check out the Heart Radio
ap Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite
shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and what kind of
stuff I never told you are protection by? I heard you,
and today we are talking about a Greek mythological figure, Cassandra,
(00:25):
who's had a huge impact and it continues to resonate
to this day. I know we've talked about this before, Samantha,
but were you Did you ever get into Greek mythology?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, so all of the encyclopedias or like Britannicas or
any of those, especially our children would have great myths
as like one of them, and I would read through
all of those. I was very fascinated with Greek myths,
Roman myths, which kind of had a whole tie into it.
So yes, I may have forgotten though quite a bit
of it though, But when you remind me like, oh.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, did you know about Cassandra?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I did not. I did not until I came into
you and said my partner said this phrase, and I
just stared at him and I was like, who's Cassandra?
And he said do you not know about this saying?
And I was like no, And.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I immediately was like here's Ally.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes. So this is a topic that is inspired by
Samantha's partner who then asked me and then I was like, yes,
let's do it. You can see I would say relevant
past episodes are why didn't you believe her? That I
did with Friend of the show and at that time
(01:45):
to post and at current moment host over on the
other podcast, I do save her and it was all
about yeah, why it was tying in the kind of
the politics of not believing women with this history that
we see in media. Also you can see the episode
we did, a book club episode we did on the
book Circe related all right, So yes, I, through your partner,
(02:14):
have learned that I guess this is coming back this
idea of I don't want to be a Cassandra or
I'm tired of being a Cassandra. This isn't new, but
it's having any resurgence, and we will talk about that
and why I think it is at the end. But yes,
I was big into Greek mythology as well. But I
(02:40):
also have told this story of many times watched the
Scream movies when I was far too young to be
watching them, and the second Scream movie when Sydney goes
to college, she is an actress and she is in
this play where she plays Sondra Yes, and she has
(03:03):
this whole scary scene where she foresees the fall of
Troy and there's lollble, lights are going wild and everybody's
wearing masks, and then of course she sees ghost Face
in there, you know. But she's saying, like, no one
believes me. I'm seeing all these horrible things and no
one believes me, And so of course I had to
look it up. I had to learn this Cassandra. So
(03:27):
that's the first time I remember learning about her. She
the play Cassandra is also the play the last play
that happens in the Last of US two in the
video game before everything shut down. In the show, it's
Sick Habit, which is a made up band in the universe,
(03:50):
but in the game it is the play Cassandra is
what is on their Kind of Theater home based Marquee.
Then just this year, Taylor No It's twenty thirty five.
Just in twenty twenty four, Taylor Swift released the song
Cassandra and I was going to read some lyrics. You're
gonna get some song lyrics.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
In here, excited. I'm not going to sing.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
I'm not going to sing. This song has been stuck
in my head though, since I've been doing this research.
So when the first stones thrown, they're screaming, and the
street there's a raging riot. When it's burned, the they're shrieking.
When the truth comes out, it's quiet. So they killed
Cassandra first because she feared the worst and tried to
tell the town. So they set my life in flames.
(04:34):
I regret to say, do you believe me now? And
then there's also an Abba song. There's actually several songs,
but these are the two that I know. Yes, So
here's some some quotes from the Abba song, pity Cassandra
that no one believed you, But then again, you were
lost from the start. Now we must suffer and sell
(04:55):
our secrets, bargain, playing smart, aching in our hearts. Sorry, Cassandra,
I misunderstand now. The last day is dawning. Some of
us wanted, but none of us would listen to the
words of warning. But on the darkest of nights, nobody
knew how to fight, and we were caught in our sleep. Son,
I mean, if you don't know the story of Cassandra,
(05:15):
I feel like you're probably getting a vibe here already, right, Yes,
I would also say just this theme is relevant in
horror movies, Like eighty percent horror movies has something that
goes along these lines. Also, this brought back a memory
for me. One of my best friends, uh we in
(05:38):
eighth grade, we tried to sneak into the R rated
film Troy.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And none of all films that one ge.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Was wearing a middle school track shirt. And so the
person selling the tickets was like, no, no, no, no,
no no. And so then we said mean girls and
bought tickets for that, and then we went to go
watch Troy. But you know, looking back, I'm like, wow,
but my whole life I could have diverged, but I
(06:13):
looked it up. I haven't seen that movie since then.
Cassandra is not in it. Yes, yes, But with all
of this this clear impact that Cassandra has had on
media on me, let's talk about the history and the myth.
So in Greek mythology, Cassandra was an intelligent, brave, mortal
(06:37):
princess of the ancient, powerful, wealthy city state of Troy,
which was located in what is now Turkey, which is
a real city by the way, you can look it up,
and was the process of Apollo who gifted her with
the ability to accurately and precisely predict the future. She
features heavily and several tragedies, including essuelas Agamemnon, which shelves
(07:01):
into her prophecies and the events leading to the fall
of Troy and her death, Euripides The Trojan Women, which
highlighted the pain and suffering of Trojan women after Troy's
fall and the injustice done to Cassandra specifically, and then
Virgil's I Need, which described the fall of Troy, fate
and Cassandra's role and all of it. She's been in
a lot of other things from that time, but those
(07:23):
were the three big ones. She was the daughter of
the last king and Queen of Troy, King Priam and
Queen Hecuba. Stepping aside a bit. Priam's father angered the
gods by not repaying them for building the wall around
Troy and other things, so they killed him and the
rest of his family, leaving only Priam alive. Priam went
(07:47):
on to have a boatload of children, perhaps up to
one hundred, including Cassandra. Like he was like, my whole
family died, I'm going to have this huge family and
hopefully someone will make it out. He also fathered Prince Paris,
who set off the Trojan War by running away with
or kidnapping Helen. Depending on what you read and how
(08:10):
you interpret it, t Yeah, yes, the wife of the
king of Sparta. So he basically, oh gosh, this is
such a complicated family story to tell, but he all right,
let me step back. I'll get to that a second.
(08:31):
Depending on what you read, Cassandra desperately tried to stop Paris,
like begging him, please do not go to Sparta, do
not have any contact with Helen, and definitely do not
bring her back to Troy. In some versions, she even
requested he be killed as an infant because she knew
his actions would lead to the downfall of Troy. Of course,
(08:55):
he didn't listen to her, and everything she foresaw came
to fruition. His abduction, slash elopement of Helen to Troy
led to the Spartans laying siege on the city. The
Trojans held off the Spartans for nine years, but the
whole area around them was kind of getting decimated and
they were taking in prisoners, and then they set up
(09:19):
this trap that led to the final blow and the
fall of Troy. Hector was another of Cassandra's siblings, the
most skilled warrior in Troy until Achilles killed him. This
is one of those episodes where I'm like, I just
don't have time to explain the history and who everyone is.
I feel like people know Achilles, at least they know
(09:40):
Achilles heel, but that's kind of a big that's kind
of a big deal, and this all kind of happened
after Hector killed achilles friend and possible lover, Patrick Collis.
Achilles was so infuriated and full of vengeance after that
that he slays Hector, drags his body around behind his
(10:02):
chariot in front of the walls of Troy, refusing to
return him to a failing for a proper burial as
was custom. However, Priam snuck into the Greek camp and
convinced Achilles to turn over his son's body, and Paris
later kills Achilles. Oh my goodness. Cassandra also has a
twin brother, Helenus, who had the power of prophecy too.
(10:26):
In some versions, Apollo gave it to him as well,
and other versions Cassandra taught him, but people believed him.
They did not believe her. He may have got his
powers from Polo, but there's a later version where they
both got their powers after they were left in Apollo's temple,
his babies and a serpent licked their ears clean so
(10:48):
that they could hear things more clearly and divine things
from nature. Most of the stuff I read said that
came much like that was somebody having fun much later
after they original were written. But I did want to
mention it because it does come up quite a bit.
And if you're already like, wait, you're giving several facts
(11:09):
that don't align, yes, because these are very old, right,
and people had a lot of versions of them.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
So right, and again like the Roman gods were similar
and had different stories but had like again similar that
they're same with different ideals, names and places, so like,
there's so many things. Because I remember being really confused.
I'm like, wait this, I've heard this story before, but
it's this and realizing it's switched up, so that, yeah,
the narrative is very different.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yes, it's just slightly different enough to be like hmm, okay, okay,
but that let us get back to the generally told version,
because this is Greek mythology. Unfortunately, for Cassandra, she was
very beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful of Priam's numerous daughters,
(11:58):
which in summer countings, is why Apollo gave her the
gift in the first place. At the time, such a
gift would have been highly revered because you know, it's
the time of ancient Greece. There's a lot of stuff
that wasn't understood. You have these guides. If you had
the power of prophecy and could see what was coming,
that would be a really valuable thing. She rejected sooner
(12:23):
after suitor incruding Apollo who made these advances towards her,
and when she rejected those advances, he accepted completely gracefully. Nope,
just kidding. He tried to take back the gift, but
discovered that gods can't take back gifts like that. It
was like a little contract like no no returns. So
(12:45):
instead he cursed her so no one would believe her prophecies.
It's a real, real class act. Yeah, so emotional. Yep,
her gift then becomes a curse if you don't know again,
Apollo is the son of Zeus, the king of the gods,
(13:06):
and he is the god of white poetry and music
and prophecy. A bunch of other stuff, but those main things.
Some recountings detail how Cassandra considered Apollo's romantic advances at first,
like she was sort of thinking about it and maybe
even encouraged them, but ultimately decided they were better off
not being together romantically. And some other versions she agreed
(13:30):
to pursue romance with him in order to get the gift,
but then fact out I would say, in any case
he's dead.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Yeah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I agree, And I mean if you just sit and
think about how terrible this is like to know what's
coming and have no one believe you. It was a
really brutal curse, and it worked. No one believed Cassandra's
vision of the future, ones that she knew were true.
(14:04):
People speculated that she'd lost her mind and may have
even imprisoned her at one point. Still, she kept trying
to convince people of the truth of her prophecies, and
this was particularly painful when it did come to some
of these huge tragedies that she foresaw that could have
been prevented if people believed her. And yes, one of
(14:26):
the most disastrous cases was when she foresaw the destruction
of Troy. She foresaw the Trojan Horse, but no one
believed her, and Troy fell, along with a lot of
her family. And I mean when it fell, almost everybody
was slaughtered. Hardly anybody escaped. She tried desperately to stop
(14:48):
the Trojans from allowing this giant wooden horse within their walls,
knowing it was full of Spartan soldiers, the best of
their soldiers, but no one listened. She took an axe
to the horse. The Trojans, who believed it was a
gift of surrender from the Spartans and a sign of
their victory, stopped her. But again she was right and
(15:09):
Troy was destroyed. Things did not get better after that
for Cassandra. She knew the destruction was coming, so she
took shelter in Athena's temple, clinging to the statue of
Athena for protection, but was discovered by Spartan soldiers. Of
the people who found her was this soldier named Ajax
the Lesser, who was second only to Achilles and his
(15:33):
abilities as a soldier. He dragged her from the altar
and viciously raped her oh why yeah in some versions,
in front of her father before they killed him. Athena
later enlisted the help of Poseidon got at the sea
for revenge on Cassandra's path because she was taking shelter
(15:54):
under Athena's protection, and he violated that. And Poseidon sank
a good portion of the Greek fleet and killed Ajax
especially Ajax survived the sinking. He was clinging to a rock,
and Persuiden was like nope and threw the trident at
the rock and killed him. This is part of the
story told in the Odyssey, by the way rough Sea's part.
(16:17):
Ajax's abduction of Cassandra is featured in a lot of
art art uh So. The Greek king Agamemnon, who was
the victor in the Trojan War, took her as a concubine,
eventually giving birth. She gave birth to twins from him.
When she tried to warn him that they would die
(16:38):
if they returned to Greece, that they would be murdered,
he didn't believe her, and the prophecy came true. Agamemnon's
wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegis. This killed them both
and the twins. Clytemnestra was angry that Agamemnon had sacrificed
(16:59):
their daughter to the gods, and that he had taken
Cassandra as a concubine, which I feel was not on her,
but okay. Depictions of her either showcase her beauty or
her absolute despair, because that is where her story ends.
Some even show her ripping her hair out because no
(17:19):
one believes what she has to say. And I would
also like to know how much of this as men
or men the gods wanting to possess a beautiful young woman,
Apollo mad at being rejected by a beautiful woman, Paris
starts a war by kidnapping Slash running off with Helen
the most beautiful mortal Woman, which was a prize he
chose from the gods. That was the part I didn't
(17:41):
get into earlier. But he had this whole thing where
he could have chosen three prizes, and the one he
chose was I want to be with the most beautiful woman.
Agamemnon enslaves Cassandra. Helenus goes on to be king. Meanwhile,
(18:10):
Cassandra's story did resonate with many, and it is one
of the most memorable. The tragedy of someone who warns
us of future danger, who is ignored, who is silenced
until it is too late is unfortunately one that many
can relate to or have seen, raising your voice, ringing
(18:31):
that warning bell, trying to protect the ones you love,
knowing what is coming, and not being able to do
anything to stop it. Like it's just a really visceral,
terrifying feeling, and I can see it would make you
feel like ripping out your hair and feel like you're
losing your minds, which brings us to the Cassandra complex.
(18:52):
So nowadays there is something called the Cassandra complex, our
Cassandra syndrome, or Cassandra phenomenon which describe situations or valid
warnings were dismissed and ignored. French philosopher Gaston Bechlar was
the first to use the term in nineteen forty nine.
Over time, it has been used in all kinds of contexts, politics, business,
(19:15):
and even things like climate change, where despite substantial evidence,
warnings are ignored. This is also true in areas where
economists predict recessions are people in tech raise questions about tech,
and then are accused of holding everyone back, like preventing progress.
When it comes to psychology, it isn't a formal diagnosis,
(19:36):
but it is often used to describe someone who feels
an impending sense of doom and can do nothing to
change it, and no one's listening to them. It is
an isolating, frightening, frustrating feeling, and just not a good feeling.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I've seen it being used in context to like no
typical people trying to talk about their partners if they
are not if they have neurodivergent diagnosis but it's not
been diagnosed yet, and no one believes the sentence. They
call that Cassandra syndrome, Like, wait, you're dignosing them from
noticing other diagnoses. I don't understand, which is an interesting concept.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
It is, and it relates to my next point. Eh.
On a more personal level, you may have seen this
kind of thrown around when you're warning a friend about
a toxic relationship and they don't listen to you. Or
as a parent, you might get warnings about your child
that you dismiss because it's uncomfortable ignoring medical advice or
(20:38):
early symptoms of something. It could be like way more
complicated than that, obviously, because the medical field we get
misdiagnoses all the time, but that kind of idea, these
are still instances that could be labeled or fall under
the Cassandra complex. There are a lot of reasons people
ignore warnings with evidence, a lot of evidence even to
(21:03):
back them up, bias, not trusting sources, doubting the credibility
of sources, group think, social pressure, just don't want to
deal with it, vibe and not thinking about the future,
and dismissing someone who is marginalized, which Cassandra. She would
(21:25):
have been more privileged as a pretty princess, but she
would have been marginalized at the time. There's also something
called the Apollo archetype, which is sort of the antithesis
that basically entails someone who is all about being reasonable.
So in this case, sort of like Helenus is making
(21:47):
these prophecies, but they're like he's reasonable, though Cassandra does
it like, oh, that's a hysterical woman that cannot be
And she did get a lot of she got a
lot of that kind of flack of she is a
woman who's got doo any emotions. We need to keep
(22:07):
her behind closed doors and we don't need to keep
her quiet. Uh huh. But she really she to her credit,
and the real tragedy of it is she never stopped trying.
She never stopped trying to prevent these things and to
warn people. It's just a shame that she had to
(22:30):
go through all of that and she knew, like, can
you imagine seeing your death coming and knowing like, oh
my god, why won't they just listen? Right right? The
death of your family. There is also another rabbit hole
you can go down if you would like, you can.
It's called real life Cassandra's. So, for instance, there are
(22:56):
diplomats who tried to stop war. There's several cases of that,
economists who tried to stop the sessions. Officials who tried
to warn about COVID.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Nobody listened, and they're still demonized.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yes, sorry, oh my gosh, I'm just trying to tell
you what's happening.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
This is what's happening. Can you do today? Is liberal
agenda to make us wear masks? Are right?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What a power? Also, somebody who just leaves like a
big wooden horse outside, open it outside.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Also like what is it like? Why would you like
this so much? That's a wooden horse, sir, Yeah, it's
not like it's marble.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
We don't need to bring it in, leave it out.
There was no need, no need at all. Then, you know.
Also historically we do have hysteria, which was the thing,
hysterical emotional woman that we don't believe. It was a
thing in the sense that people thought that's what was
going on or it's not really what was going on.
(24:08):
And then presently things like not believing women when it
comes to health or anything or anything, right, which brings
me to the next one, hashtag me too. Yeah, that
was another example where for so long women have been saying,
you know, hey, this is a real problem, and then
(24:28):
when it finally unleashes online becomes this big movement, it's
a witch hunt. It's all these women who are trying
to like punish men.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Can't be nice or we're gonna be told that we're
being harassing. Sir, we know what nice is. This is
not it?
Speaker 1 (24:48):
No, no, it's not. And do you think this is fun?
Like this is a miserable, painful experience.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Right, The fact that mostly women are being ostracized and
fired or being pushed out because they have been harassed
and actually wanted to stop it.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, and we have, unfortunately, I mean, in some
ways fortunately, I guess, but in a lot of ways unfortunately,
we have some pretty high profile sexual assault plus a
lot of other thing cases going on right now in
the US.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I mean, people like pe did it just got Yeah,
And a.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Lot of the discourse around it is like look at
these women, right, but uh kind of another example of
that is whistleblers. I would say, who will say, you know,
this is a this is a real problem and are
just completely often completely ignored, are silenced. And this is
(25:50):
a bigger issue than for this episode, but it is
really related this whole idea of like dismantling expertise when
it's inconvenient. So when your expertise is saying I can
go about living my life, I love that. That's great.
I don't have to make any changes. But when it's
saying this is a real problem you need we all
(26:11):
need to make a change, then it's oh, who do
you think you are? What do you really know?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Right? Choosing much change doesn't exist? What are you talking about?
Big corporations? Love me, They're not polluting the world if
only you would recycle?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Right, it snowed last year, can't.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Be it's so cold now for a day? Yes?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Oh, but I mean that's also it's frustrating in terms
of the skills, like having these skills are this knowledge
and seeing these consequences of ignoring these experiences, especially of
marginalized people. It's not that no one and can't understand,
(27:02):
because some people paint it as like I read an
article about Cassandra that was wondering if maybe we've painted
Cassandras into too much of a like no one can
be on their level. But it's not that because they're
kind of they're breaking it down for you. That's like
their goals to get you to understand.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
But people just a lot of people, for one reason
or another don't listen or don't want to listen. And
that's been a long that's that's an old idea that
why do we tear down people who have knowledge? We've
done that forever and then it's sort of a shoot
(27:45):
the messenger type thing of blaming experts when their predictions
come true. Right, And some people were even talking about,
you know, why would you want to be a Cassandra
in this case because keeping your mouth shut would be
better because you'd be punished for being a Cassandra. Right, Yeah,
all killed or killed m yep. And a lot of Cassandra's,
(28:11):
especially women in marginalized folks, have been buriased but that
I mean, there are a lot of reasons why I
think it's resonating now. I think that marginalized folks feel
that they've been sounding alarmed for years and years and
years and years, and this burden of truth and this
(28:36):
kind of dealing with this whole people being annoyed. I
think kind of a backlash about do I and stuff
might be an example of this, but being annoyed, like
you're bringing too much attention to this thing. It's not
that big of a deal, but it is and it
has been. And then there's this sort of other idea
(28:58):
of people getting really angry. Do we not know this
when people did know this? Yeah, they've been saying it.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Right, we've been saying the fact that they're going after
trans people and just because you're not trans doesn't mean
it's not going to fall on you. The same thing
as they're going after the black community, and just because
you're not black doesn't mean they're not coming after you next.
It's kind of the same thing as they're going after
immigrant people. At first, it was the Muslim community saying
they're trying to protect the you know, from terrorists because
(29:25):
we have so many bad players. I'm saying that sarcastically
that they use that, and the next like they win
the Latino votes, saying that, yeah, those are the bad
people for sure. For sure they are or like queer
people for bad. And then they're like, oh wait, they're
gonna get us too, okay, and the other minorities, including
(29:46):
Asian communities, who are like, but we're fine because you know,
we're the model minority and they're getting just as many
people being deported out. You're like, ah, that was the
Cassandra call. You're not listening to when they come for all.
They will eventually when they come for one, they're going
to come for all, like it's it's happening and no
one's listening. Yeah, they really think that they're protected somehow
(30:10):
or it doesn't really affect them. That's the other part
is that like as where they just not believe them.
They just don't believe it's going to affect them personally.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
That's true. And of course I got to put in
another another NERD reference because I just do this. I
was thinking about this in another context because I feel
like there's this thing I've talked about it before called
(30:40):
the Iceman list, which is basically like if you look
back at a lot of a lot of eighties movies,
the villain kind of maybe they were a jerk but
was kind of right, Yeah, but they're they're very painted
as villainous. But a lot of times it's like you know,
the EPA guy and Ghostbusters saying, you know, hey, this
(31:01):
is not this is bad right, or like it's Goose
in top gun me, like this is not safe. I
guess what happened to Goose? Like there. I think there's
also a villainizing of Cassandra's in that way. But I
also just have to mention, Okay, there's this character name
(31:22):
Fives from Star Wars. Okay, so he he was a
Clone and he the Clones all had these chips in
their heads and that's how the Jedi were pretty much
wiped out because they couldn't sense what was coming in
the forest because the Clones didn't sense what was coming
in the force because they didn't know they had these
chips in their head. Right, But Fives found out about
(31:47):
is from the Clone Wars show. Oh okay, yes, but
I have a friend who just texted me it was like,
I cannot believe you've turned me into this Star Wars person.
And now I can't unsee all the parallels in our society.
And I was like, I know, But anyway, fives he
learns and he figures it out, and no one listens
(32:09):
to him, and they think he's like this big conspiracy theorist.
But his friends and Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi
also as friends, they're like, you know something, something is here.
We should he's a friend of ours, even if he's
this is a conspiracy theory. Something's clearly wrong, and they
(32:31):
try to help him, and then of course the old
Emperor Palpatine kills him. But he was he was sounding
that alarm and if if he had gotten that message out,
things could have gone very differently and probably much better.
So that's the peril of not listening to.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Right, this is the we live in this peril, you know,
we do.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
We do. Unfortunately, Also, as we've touched on the dangers
of being of voice of dissent, I think a lot
of people are worried about that, and so that's why
Cassandra is resonating how it feels to not be believed
is a really miserable feeling, especially if you share something
painful or maybe something you never shared so I think
(33:17):
that's one of the reasons. And having that feeling of
knowing what's coming and not being able to do about it,
like that helpless feeling that I can't stop this. That
just I think all of us are feeling that right now,
a lot of us, at least powerful people abusing power,
(33:38):
so you know, Apollo doing what he did, especially when
someone refuses to fall in line or give them with
what they want or feel entitled to because they gave
you a gift. AI and disinformation and misinformation I think now,
I think we've we've got a lot of like I
don't know what even is right right.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
There's so many videos I'm even saying that people like wait,
this is it? Maybe? Is it? No?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
No?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yes? And there's it's bad. It's already it's been bad
for a while, whether it's just misinformation that's being leaked
as fact to this to like having videos of being
like is that a real video? What is this cute
dog in bear? Is this a thing?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have I have an episode
coming up where I had to I had to really
do some digging like this, really, I just need to
make sure that this is okay, okay, all right. Yeah. Also,
I think a lot of this story is about fate,
(34:52):
so she can't stop these things. And I think for
for some people that idea is really frightening because that's
that goes back to the whole free will we can
change things versus the that's just fate, that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, I wonder if writing this tale is one of
those explainers, because it doesn't make sense why women are
so distrusted, just like in such a way that this
fairy tale is like, maybe this is why because nothing
else makes sense. It's a curse because there's no reason.
Kind of the same as the Adam and Eve tail.
(35:33):
It's kind of like, oh, we have to say this
is the reason why they're not trustworthy, or this is
the reason it's their fault. And so this kind of
aligns to explaining why we don't believe women, not just
why we shouldn't, but why we don't because nothing else
makes sense.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, I mean I would say that is a brutal punishment. Yeah,
it is a huge like punishing a woman for knowing
right what is coming, So that hats off. I mean,
that's awful. I didn't get to read the entire article,
(36:10):
but there's a piece about Virgil's depiction of Cassandra and
how sexist it was, So there's definitely I mean, if
it's coming from like ancient times, there's no part of
me that it thinks it was probably a healthy depiction
of women, right. But it is interesting how as time
(36:33):
has moved on, modern interpretations are much more like I
don't even know if you knew what you were writing, right, Yeah,
and then the final points to end on because it
kind of a bummer on some of these, but resistance,
I mean, like I said, she she didn't give up
(36:55):
even though no one believed her. She kept trying, and
her story did stick around and has lasted and has
resonated with so many people. And I'm sure you know
that's kind of amazing, right because it was a story
(37:16):
about a woman coming from that long ago very easily
could have been lost, or she would have been the
character that got kind of pushed to the side, right,
But she really wasn't.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Sad she is a metaphor, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
And I mean it's a terrible what happened in that
story to her is off.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I feel like they just always have to add this
that one, like why why why? Yeah, it was really beaten,
would have been bad enough, kidnapped pretty bad, but no,
we have to add one more. I'm okay, everything's fine.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yep. Well, listeners, If you have any thoughts about this,
I would definitely love to hear that yes, yes, any
other mythological figures we should do, or if you have
any examples of real, real world spandras that we should do,
(38:20):
please let us know. You can email us at Hello
at steffanever told You dot com. You can find us
on Blue Sky at Moustil podcast, or on Instagram and
TikTok at stuff I Never told You. We're also on
YouTube and we have a book you can get where
you get your books. Thanks as always to you, a
super ducer Christina or Executi producer and a con trooper Joey.
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never
Told You should I Heart Radio for more podcast or
(38:41):
my heart Radio. You can check out the Heart Radio
ap Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite
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