# Heracles and Sisyphus *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 11 May 2003* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### maa32 *11 May 2003, 00:36* Crush, excellent points about Latro's contiguity with Heracles, especially since Pindaros calls him Heracles in his little prose ending to Soldier of Arete. There is something to note: Latro easily finishes Sisyphus' task for him - and Sisyphus was like a 3/4 god. There is some indication that Sisyphus feels like an old relative of Latro - is freeing Sisyphus the only reason Asopus gave Falcata special powers way back at the opening?! The wolves seem to be both a homage to Gene Wolfe's name and an easy tool for prophecy: when the wolf's young and the wolf's tooth, etc.; when wolf, faun, and nymph gather round, etc etc. (Hey, the nymph is Elata and the faun is Aglaus, I'm 100% positive he's one of those crazy goatmen.) There IS a reason to link Ares with Zoroastrianism: the people of thrace say that Pleistorus IS a form Ahura Mazda. This is strictly in Wolfe's book, not in any other way. I can't imagine why he would do this without us wanting to associate ares with the all good God. I think that the Lernean Hydra (or the Lamia, or whatever Drakaina is) certainly makes a good case for Latro being more like Hercules, but I think Ares did make both sides mad, and was forced to walk the world as a mortal because everybody hates him (yet now they kind of feel bad, especially about that whole memory thing, so they treat him a lot more nicely since he's learned his lesson). We've directly seen Heracles talk to Latro in his match with Basias, so we know he can't BE Heracles. But he might be reliving that epic heroes tasks, just because. Interestingly enough, that would make Ares his archenemy, right?! Weird. Marc Aramini ---