KAAZU

Funny how she never actually did anything monstrous.

Talking about the titles.
Monster. Villain. Gorgon. Beast.

All words that have been glued to Medusa’s name for thousands of years like she earned them.

Except, she didn’t.

She didn’t hunt humans. She didn’t terrorize villages. She didn’t wage war or curse bloodline or demand sacrifices.

She just existed, In a cave. At the edge of the world. Alone, and somehow she’s the monster in the story.

The Actual Monster Checklist

Let’s do this properly.
Let’s actually look at who did what.

Poseidon: (the god of the seas, big powerful deity, absolute authority) assaulted a mortal woman inside a sacred temple.

Monster behavior? absolutely.
Title given? God. Worshipped. Celebrated. Statues built.

Athena: (goddess of wisdom, Medusa’s own goddess, the one whose temple it was) chose to punish her priestess.
not Poseidon. Not the one who actually did something. But Medusa, The victim.

Monster behavior? with no justice.
Title given? Goddess of wisdom and justice. Heroic. Revered.

Perseus: (hero of the story) flew in specifically to cut off the head of a woman who was living quietly in exile, bothering absolutely no one, and used her severed head as a weapon for the rest of his adventures.

most monstrous act in the entire myth.
Title given? Hero, Legend, constellation in the sky.

And Medusa?

The one who was assaulted, cursed, exiled, and then hunted down and beheaded.

Title given? monster.
The audacity … the absolute audacity of the story.

She wasn’t hunting anyone. They came for her.

This is the part that gets me every single time.

Medusa didn’t leave the cave. She wasn’t out there terrorizing the countryside or turning innocent people to stone for fun. She was exiled. She was sent to the furthest edge of the world specifically so she’d be away from everyone.

She was the one who was isolated.
She was the one who was alone.
She was the one who had already lost everything … her humanity, her home, her goddess, her future.

And then Perseus came to her.
He sought her out. He planned it, He brought a whole kit (mirror shield, winged sandals, the works). He came prepared to hunt her down.

So who was hunting who exactly?
The monster in the story had a to-do list and a weapon and divine backing.
The “monster” in this story was asleep when it happened.

---

Drop your take on Medusa in the comments. Writers and artists what’s your version of her story?