Let’s take a trip back to Greek mythology, and talk about Lamia.

Don’t let the above picture fool you: she’s actually a terrifying snake woman.

Of course, she didn’t start off that way. She was actually very beautiful. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing for women in Greek mythology, since she naturally ends up gaining the attention of Zeus. So they have a little fling, which Hera finds out about. This just manages to make things worse.

Because, as she is wont to do, Hera decides to go after Lamia instead of her philandering husband. And she goes, in my opinion, a lot further than is entirely necessary.

First, Hera drive Lamia to murder and eat her own children. As you can probably imagine, Lamia isn’t happy, and either turns into a woman with a snake’s tail instead of legs, or a snake with a woman’s face, depending on who you ask. Then, as if divinely inspired cannibalism and turning into a snake mermaid wasn’t bad enough, she gives Lamia chronic insomnia.

Zeus actually feels pretty bad for Lamia, which is rare for him, and grants Lamia clairvoyance, shapeshifting powers, and the ability to remove and put back her eyes. That last one is apparently supposed to help with the insomnia thing, but I’m not really sure how. It certainly doesn’t help mine.

Like most myths, however, there is another version of the story, which actually doesn’t involve Zeus at all. In this one, Lamia is the beautiful but cruel queen of Libya. She’s so cruel, in fact, that she decides to have her soldiers gather and murder a bunch of children. Her transformation comes from her brutality, basically making her outside match her insides.

in both versions of the tale, Lamia ends up becoming a horrifying child murdering monster that Greek mothers use to ensure their children’s good behavior. Which seems kind of unfair if we’re talking about the first version of the story.

And the moral here seems to be, like most Greek myths, don’t get involved with Zeus. Or don’t murder children. Either would work here, really.

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