The boy, Deuce Gorgon, is apparently the son of Medusa. This had lead to me telling her about mythology.
All is well, learning opportunities and such, until she asks me if Medusa had to feed the snakes on her head.
I said no. The snakes are attached to her head like hair. You wouldn’t have to feed them any more than you have to feed your hair. Further, if they do need additional vitamins, then surely it is in the shampoo she uses. Or the hairspray (snakespray?)
Her counter: they have mouths. Mouths need to be fed, it’s just that simple. She supposes that Medusa has a tank with mice that she sticks her head in. I’m thinking this is really not very efficient.
Also asked was if a snake grows long enough and whips around to see Medusa’s face, does it turn to stone, too? If so, can it be removed?
What do you think?
I think your daughter is very, very smart, is what I think.
As far as eating: no. Where would wastes be excreted? I’m with you; I think the nutrition comes from the inside, as the snakes are attached to Medusa. This is if she needs to eat at all, actually. She is a cursed immortal creature, as far as I know.
And no to the snakes turning to stone if they see Medusa head-on. They are part and parcel of her curse and as such are immune to the effects of it.
In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman a woman wandering in a delusional state finds herself at the house of Medusa’s sisters, Stheno and Euryale. While staying at their house, she finds snakes beginning to grow in her hair. As she drinks a glass of water, the snakes dip into it as well. The sequence ends with the woman requesting more water, because “My hair drank most of it.”
From this we learn that, although gorgons’ snakes don’t necessarily eat, they do drink, hence their mouths. And surely any woman who finds her hair getting scaly would use moisturizer…that’s just how the snakes keep moist.
From what I gather, her sister were immortal, she was not. Why she got the shaft, I don’t know. Maybe they ended up getting the shaft - living forever must not be a lot of fun.
I never thought of the poop aspect of the snakes. wow! I can’t wait for her to get home and see what she says about this!
There’s a page-a-day calendar in the main office of a cartoon called “The Argyle Sweater”. A few days ago, it had Medusa answering the phone, “Hey, can I call you back in a few minutes? I’m putting curlers in my hair”. The cartoon shows her hair constricting several rats.
Maybe Medusa feeds herself through the snakes’ mouths.
(Of course, this is one of those questions where the correct is whatever you want it to be, since it’s unlikely to be found in any canonical source, if you can even determine what canon is in this case.)
Her digestive system goes through her brains? The other issue is that snakes can’t really bite chunks off. Medusa would have to swallow stuff. And those swallowed things would have to go through her brain, pushing on it as they go down. Eating sounds like a big headache.
We don’t have cable tv so I don’t even know if this is a show or what. Her main reason to love these dolls is because of Lagoona Blue - the monster of the lagoon character. At my house, anything having to do with the ocean - mermaids,* especially* mermaids - is what rules. Her dad got her the other dolls because Lagoona was not available for ages. So, she loves the dolls but has no idea of the show…yet!
I asked her where the snake poop goes if the snakes eat… she said “pimples”. yikes!
I know there is no right answer, I thought it would be fun to see what you all thought.
Well, we only see the head ends of the snakes – we don’t really see the back tails. Maybe they go all the way down to her intestines, and she expels THEIR waste along with her own? (same with when they pee – do snakes pee?)
I think the real answer is that, back when Medusa was conceived of, suspension of disbelief was much much greater, and there was no need for what we now call fanwank.
That said, should such a thing as Medusa exist, I would expect it to be similar to things such as genetic anomalies with two heads, in which case, the being could be entirely sustained through the ingestion of a single head, however, all of the mouths of the animal would feel the desire to eat and would therefore be subject to appropriate action with regards to that desire…
That said, snakes tend to desire eating appropriate cuisine. While they might snap at mice were they to appear, I doubt they would bother snapping at larger prey like human unless as a defensive measure. And even in the case of smaller prey, if Medusa were already satiated, there would be no reason for them to be hungry.
A couple of answers, depending on your mood:
1.) The archaic, really Classical Greek Gorgon doesn’t have snakes in place of hair. I know that sounds heretical, but it’s true. If you look at Greek coins, or most ancient artwork (vase paintings and statues), there aren’t even snakes in evidence. In those cases where snakes are present, they’re in her hair, not in place of her hair. In one of the myths of Hercules, he’s given a vial containing the gorgon’s hair (and it’s not full of snakes). Only in an incredibly tiny fraction of artwork does the gorgon have snakes place of hair – and I suspect most of those cases are really misinterpretations due to lack of space. So the simple answer is that Medusa’s snakes are separate beings from herself (if they’re in her hair, she often has them elsewhere – wrapped around her waist like a belt, or crawling on her arms), who need their own food supply, and can excrete by themselves.
2.) From the Renaissance onwards we’ve been picturing the Gorgon as having only snakes, and no hair. This is an early manifestation of The Rule of Cool, but it’s not all that different from mythological creatures made of others stuck together – those making the artwork didn’t give any thought to its practicalities, or to anything beyond how interesting it looked. In fact, the ancients rarely seemed to take our “science fictional” attitude of trying to imagine what reality would be like for beings radically different for people. A relevant example is the Gorgon’s Garden of Statues – if you have creatures capable of turning people into stone, then there ought to be a lot of such petrified victims around her, right? Certainly modern interpretations like the idea – it shows up in both versions of Clash of the Titans, not to mention Son of Hercules Against Medusa and more modern variations like The Lightning Thief and Bob Clampett’s Porky Pig cartoon where he imagines himself to be Perseus. And in Neuil Gaiman’s the Sandman. But you won’t find Medusa’s Sculpture Garden in ancient literature or art.
So how does its biology work? It’s up to the creator of the imaginative work. I can only direct you to the work of that great sage, Charles G. Finney, whose soliloquoy from * The Circus of Dr. Lao* on the Medusa I used as an intro to my fifth chapter:
