How “Real” is Fictional Pandora?

Student paper for credit in HIST 2210, LC
Written by: D. Xiao

Let’s talk about Greek mythology. I bet the first thing that came into most of your minds is the Percy Jackson series or Disney’s Hercules movie and I’m not surprised. Myriads of television shows and books today are based on the myths and stories of the Ancient Greek world. But who could blame the producers and writers? With powerful gods and goddesses, breathtaking settings, and dramatic events, the Ancient Greek world beautifully captures the interest of readers and viewers. Many authors and producers  dream of alternate characters or events to make them fit their own story better or to give them something that makes them unique to their work. Now my question here is how much are these characters and stories precise compared to the myths of Ancient Greece, and how much are they different. Now talking about every persona in Greek mythology would be both exhausting and time-consuming. So let’s just narrow it down to just Pandora, not the jewelry brand, the first woman on earth according to Greek mythology. 

Now let’s start with some background context as to who exactly is Pandora. Many people would probably recognize the title Pandora’s Box, but it was not actually a box of any kind, the “box” is something that a modern creator changed. You could say it was actually Pandora’s jar, but more accurately it is Pandora’s Pithos. Pandora was created by the Greek gods and sent to earth as a punishment for men for receiving the stolen fire from Prometheus. (Marder, 2014) Pandora had also received many gifts from her creators to take with her in the world of man. One of those gifts is her iconic pithos, well I guess in modern day it's her box that is iconic, but it's a pithos! Pandora was told to never open the pithos, no matter what, and guess what? She opened it.(Atkinson, 2014) Reminds me of a joke I heard about, goes something like this: “Hey guys Pandora here! Welcome to my unboxing vlog!” Haha please laugh at my joke. Back on track, curiosity drove her to steal the key to the lock and open the pithos, releasing all the ill and evil that was hidden inside purposely by the gods. In all the panic, she managed to seal the pithos back up but also sealing hope inside. (Atkinson, 2014)

 Disney’s Once Upon a Time, a popular television series that emerged in late 2011, is a show that captures and uses Pandora’s precious pithos in their main storyline. In the series, they call it Pandora’s Box, and it is an extremely powerful and enchanted item that Mr.Gold, the main character, keeps hidden in his prawn shop. There’s a reason it is kept hidden and enchanted, not just because Mr.Gold likes it, but because it is said to contain the world’s darkest evil, (Horowitz & Kitsis 2011-2018) Scary! Mr.Gold’s plan is to release the darkest evil sealed inside Pandora’s Box and hope it is powerful enough to defeat Peter Pan, the villain in this trilogy. Also for those wondering, no it did not work. Turns out the one Mr.gold was protecting was fake and Peter Pan actually had the real one, so Mr.Gold was sealed inside. Anyways, back to the question. While it is true that Pandora’s pithos contain some evil things, the series uses Pandora’s box as a tool, some could even call it a weapon. In Once Upon a Time, the evil within Pandora’s box is a powerful dark force that could defeat many, Pandora’s pithos were nothing like that, they weren’t going to physically hurt someone and they weren’t a “force”. In mythology, the “evil” that escaped from Pandora’s pithos was not aggressive and against life, basically, they weren’t going to kill you. The evil that the gods purposely placed inside was more like a lesson. Basically, the evil inside the pithos was not meant to cause any harm, but more to give Pandora and the humans a better look at life, and more meanings to what life is. At this point, Pandora was already viewed as a human by the gods who created her, and after the evils brought her to look at life differently she acted as an “animated alternative to life”, as Hesiod described. (Marder, 2014)

Now let’s look at the appearance. Let’s start with the magical box Mr.Gold thought he had. It was a small iron box with gears that could fit in your palm, and had cravings on the side, with a bright red jewel on top. (Horowitz & Kitsis 2011-2018) But as we know now Ancient Greece’s Pandora did not have a box, she had a pithos, a vase made out of clay to store food and liquids. The producers and artists who worked on Once Upon a Time must have decided to change it to look more like a scary and powerful object, rather than something that looks like a flower vase, you wouldn’t rush into battle with something like that. 

Once Upon a Time was a television show that highlighted more of Pandora’s “box”, but what about Pandora herself? For that, we’ll have to dive into the world of Percy Jackson. Based on the books written by Rick Riordan, the Percy Jackson series is probably where most people know Greek gods from.

In Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods, Pandora makes her debut. Her story here is very much like the ones written in mythology. Here, Pandora was created by Zeus with the help of the other gods, as a punishment for Prometheus for stealing fire, it was actually Aphrodite’s idea to use the love of women as the punishment. Many gods were here to create Pandora, for example, Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, Athena, and Poseidon. All these gods gave Pandora different attributes to make her the alpha female. But, they did give her curiosity, which led her to open the box. Great. Pandora was sent to earth to become the wife of Prometheus’ brother, Epimetheus. As a wedding gift, Aphrodite gave her the pithos and warned her not to open it, it was just supposed to be an object to be looked at. Well then. She opened it and released the evil inside, however, the spirit of hope was sealed inside to stay, but it ended up being a good thing, otherwise,  all the evil would take over making the humans lives more difficult, the spirit of hope stayed with humanity so the human race would not completely crumble. (Riordan, 2014)  Sound familiar? Yes, it is pretty much accurate compared to history. We can see a pretty accurate depiction of her creation painted on the said of a calyx-krater.

(C) The British Museum

There is a calyx-krater, which is the name given to wine bowls with two handles on the side, normally made in Athens, and the drawings on the vase tell us about the early days of Pandora. It was made in approximately 460-450 BC in Attica, Greece, but it was excavated in Altamura which is a small town in modern-day Italy. It is currently on display in The British Museum in London and is painted with the red-figure style often seen in Greek poetry. The paintings show Pandora as a lifeless figure right front and center and surrounded by the gods handing her things. The different items she is being handed represents all the different traits Pandora would possess. Kind of like baking, all the different ingredients work together to create the final product. The description of the piece of work shows us, Zeus, Poseidon, Athene, Aphrodite, and others are working together adding ingredients into the Pandora pot. Ancient artwork is basically an ancient course of information, we can use the painting and the description that is offered by historians and by the museum to see that Pandora’s story in Percy Jackson is pretty accurate. 

Now even after all that I said about Pandora, she is not the most popular in Greek mythology compared to some others, but I love her and she definitely deserves more attention! I’m looking at you! If given more time or the option I honestly would have chosen a different character in Greek mythology, one with more detailed backgrounds and stories, also makes it easier to find specific information about them online, I’m sorry Pandora it had to be said, it would have made researching a little less painful. Right, off topic, but Pandora’s story normally shows up attached to others, she never really had her moment in the spotlight so gathering information was a little difficult, but nonetheless she is still quite a figure in Greek mythology, someone who I spent the last few months reading articles on, and someone unique enough to be turned into characters in fictional settings, even though her role was rather small. She is still one of my favourites.

In conclusion, as we see in Once Upon a Time, in Percy Jackson, and in many other stories, we often see the object of Pandora’s pithos often altered, but Pandora herself and the story that comes with her stay more or less the same. I’d say it because Pandora’s pithos is such a simple yet unique object with a flexible purpose and characteristic, producers and authors could alter the use of Pandora’s pithos into something that would fit into their trilogy, but people would still be able to recognize, oh hey, it’s a reference to Pandora from Greek mythology! But Pandora’s story and the build-up of her personality is rather more difficult to adjust but still make sense, and have others be capable of seeing the reference and relation. Also, it’s like if you change the character and the backstory too much it’s basically like making a new character with the name Pandora. So you could say half of the depictions are pretty accurate, some are not, more or less similar but not that close! With many sources of Greek mythology implemented in TV shows and books, there is a split separating those that will stick to the hard facts, like Pandora’s story in Percy Jackson, and those that will deviate from the truth to amplify their show's overall flair, like Pandora’s box in Once Upon a Time, in their own ways representing Pandora and her pithos.

Bibliography

M.A Atkinson, (2014) Pancreatic Biopsies in type 1 diabetes: revisiting the myth of Pandora’s box, Diabetologia, pg. 656-659

A.Horowitz & E.Kitsis (Executive Producer). (October 23, 2011-May 18, 2018). Once Upon a Time. [TV Series]. ABC Studios Kitsis/Horowitz. S3 ep. 7.

E.Marder, (2014)  Pandora’s Fireworks; or, Questions Concerning Femininity, Technology, and the limits of the Human. Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. 47 no. 4 pg. 386-399

R.Riordan. (2014). Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods. Disney Hyperion Penguin Group