| Medusa | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Biographical Information | |
| Real Name: | Medusa |
| Species: | Monsters |
| Family: | |
| Physical Description | |
| Gender: | Female |
| Hair color: | Black Snakes |
| Height: | 6'2 |
| Character Information | |
| First appearance: | Sibling Rivalry |
| Voiced by: | Pauline Newstone |
| GALLERY | |
Medusa is a gorgon and the sister of Euryale and Stheno.
Physical Appearance
Medusa is portrayed to be a tall, monstrous-like woman. She is lean but muscular and wearing red clothing. Her skin is a light blue color, pointed ears, talons on her elbows, and black snakes covering her head.
Personality
Medusa appears to enjoy that she can petrify anything she sets her eyes on. When captured by the Chosen Ones, she refused to speak to them. When her sisters attempted to get her back, Medusa became furious at how they thought she was giving gorgons a bad reputation at how she was captured and dismissed the teens in order to unleash her anger at them.
Role in the Series
In Sibling Rivalry, Medusa is accidentally freed from her underground imprisonment. Upon her release, she wanders around a zoo where she petrified a bear before trying to sneak up on Neil when he was on a break from his photoshoot. But because he was frightened off before she could attempt turning him to stone, his good luck caused a chain reaction of construction equipment to go haywire and capture her.
After Neil called the situation in to Jay, Medusa was taken to a special prison where she was heavily restrained and placed behind glass that neutralized her abilities. Chiron stated how lucky Neil had been during the entire thing as he states how dangerous Medusa is. Although Hera gave her word that only she has access to the special prison, Chiron raises a bigger concern of Medusa's snakes being telepathic and that they may contact Medusa's sisters, Euryale and Stheno. This concern would prove valid when the two sisters received news through their snakes of what happened to Medusa and knew Neil was the reason for her capture.
When Neil was successfully captured by the sisters and used as a means to get Medusa back, the others managed to break into the prison and securely restrain Medusa to take her back where she escaped in the zoo. When she was taken to her sisters, tension between the three is revealed when Medusa claims she does not want to be around them as they saw her as giving gorgons a bad reputation. Even when Stheno freed Medusa to help fight against the heroes, Medusa immediately turned her attention to her sisters as she was angered by their viewing her as weak. This provided the distraction for the teens to escape while sealing the exit with thousands of pounds of rocks.
Mythology
- In the Ovid myth, Medusa is stated to have been a beautiful virgin priestess dedicated to serving Athena. However, her position as a priestess came to an end when Poseidon had sexually assaulted Medusa inside Athena's temple. Because women were not considered their own selves and their situations not considered by society on the same level as men, Athena saw Poseidon as doing what was set upon male deities and Medusa was faulted for his actions as it was her beautiful appearance that caught Poseidon's attention, hence Athena turning her into a gorgon so her human beauty would not draw another man's attention. Even if Athena had not turned Medusa into a gorgon, Medusa was considered by Greek standards to no longer be eligible for traditional marriage since she was no longer a virgin due to the assault.
- While this version of the myth is still considered valid, it is of Roman origin.
- Older myths state that Medusa was a gorgon since birth.
- In several myths, Athena was the one who bestowed onto Perseus the mirror shield he used to see Medusa's reflection.
- There are a variety of myth's that have different origins as some myths claim they are children of the sea and others claim they are children of a gorgon and a mortal, human mother. Some of those myths also claim that the women were not turned into complete gorgons as they mainly kept their original human appearances and only their hair and eyes changed. These myths were changed since it was considered unheroic for a hero to kill a human, especially a woman.
- According to Ovid, in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas, who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed Atlas into stone when Atlas tried to attack him.
- While Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon, she was beheaded by Perseus, and from her body sprung Pegasus and Chrysaor, her two offspring. Her blood falling to the ground during Perseus' race to save his mother created other monsters.
- Because she is still alive in the series, Pegasus and Chrysaor should not be alive.
Trivia
- In the series, Medusa's snakes can communicate telepathically with the snakes of her sisters.