Jason and the Golden Fleece

Athamas married Nephele and had two kids: Helle and Phryxus. Then he realizes that his wife is kind of unstable and so he divorces her and marries Ino. Ino, as gorgeous as may be, is kind of… evil and planned to destroy her new step-children. Nephele found out and set out to protect her children. In doing so, she sent the kids off on a winged ram to a far away land. Unfortunately, Helle fell and drowned. When her brother got to the destination, he offered up the ram in sacrifice, thankful for his safe journey. It was oracled that the King’s safety relied on the safekeeping of the Golden Fleece.

Somewhere else, Jason’s uncle had set him on a mission to retrieve the Golden Fleece. And so he gathered fifty men and put them all on a boat. The weather was bad and the Argonauts had to stop on island, Lemnos, to get away from a storm. There, they found women, eager to marry. Multiple Argonauts stayed with the women of Lemnos, unable to resist them. And then some winds drove them to the island of some giants. The giants were all nice and such, it was all great, friends are great. But when they tried to leave, they were driven back to the island. This time, though, the Doliones didn’t recognize their friends and attacked them, forcing the Argonauts to fight back. And so they lost some men there. This happened many many times: in Mysia, later against Amycus, then against Phineus, and so on. 

In one case, the Argonauts had to get
past the Clashing Rocks. 

In Pontus, Jason was told that the Fleece was guarded by a dragon. Medea, the King’s daughter, charmed the dragon so that they could get the Golden Fleece. When her father found out, he was not happy and went after his daughter and the Argonauts. They went all around the world, running from Medea’s father.

The adventure had seemingly brought Jason and Medea together. In the end, Jason ended up leaving Medea to fend for herself and Medea killed their children.

And that’s as depressing as a story can get, really.

Because I just watched the BBC trailer for the Day of the Doctor for the millionth time, I have to make this about Doctor Who. The greatest most terrible love story: Rose and the Doctor. “Rose Tyler, I…” I mean, that’s just it. Poof, his image disappears and not even in later episodes does he say what he was (obviously) going to say. So much love there. They’re absolutely perfect together. (And apart.) But they need to be together. And for the 50th, they’re coming back! Both of them. My two babies. And I am going to cry tears of joy and then probably tears of tears.