Tera Lynn Childs's Sweet Venom: The Elements Of Greek Mythology

Mythology is a huge part of our culture, especially Greek Mythology. It has made it’s way into our movies, games, and books. Tera Lynn Childs’s Sweet Venom, is certainly no exception. Tera Lynn Childs incorporates various elements from Greek Mythology with her own ideas into her own story. Although she uses it more as a base instead of a direct reference.

While the triplet’s powers don’t line up Medusa’s original myth perfectly, they still stay fairly true to the myth. Medusa originally turned people to stone, however, the triplets have a temporary hypnosis power. In the book, they say that Medusa had the same hypnosis the girls have. The Gorgon sisters themselves had both healing blood and poison blood. According to Greeka, “The blood from the left side of a Gorgon was supposed to kill a mortal man, while the blood from a Gorgon's right side was believed to bring a dead person back to life.” [1]. Snakes themselves, as long as they weren’t poisonous, were related to the god of medicine, Aasclepius [2].

In the original myth, Medusa was raped by Poseidon. In Sweet Venom, it simply says that Athena thought that Medusa seduced Poseidon. Athena’s role with Medusa is overall the same, aside from a few differences. She was jealous of Medusa and sought revenge because of Poseidon. One thing that stays very true to the original myth, is Medusa’s sisters, Stheno and Euryale. The two were immortal, both in myth and Sweet Venom, while Medusa was mortal and perished. The book mentions that descendants of Medusa, at least the Key Generation, are triplets, which goes back to the three gorgon