The Golden Apple

I wasn't there, but the way I heard it was like this:

Zeus was throwing a wedding for some mortals, right, and it was really important that things go well. Turns out there was this prophesy going around that if these mortals didn't get married, Zeus was going to impregnate the bride and their offspring would kill him. You know, God problems. But, needless to say, he was invested. He invited everybody, the entire pantheon of gods and goddesses and kings and greeks and monsters to this wedding, but told all of them, “Do not tell Eris about the party.” 

Eris is the goddess of chaos and confusion. You can see why he didn't want her there. Zeus, the king of the gods, he's like, “I can not stress this enough. Do not let Eris know about this fucking party.”

So of course Eris hears about the party and of course she's like, “What the fuck, dude? Fuck your party.” With her magic, she creates a golden apple with the word Kallisti on it which means, “to the prettiest one”. She tosses the apple into the party like a hand-grenade and rolls the fuck out. 

Now Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite are all there and they see this apple and they're each like, “well, clearly this belongs to me.” They can't decide who gets to keep the apple so they go to Zeus.

This is Zeus's wife, daughter, and sister we're talking about here, and they're all demanding he decide who's the prettiest. I'm sure that conversation started with a whole lot of hand-waving and various versions of, “you're all pretty in you're own unique ways now please don't cause a fucking scene,” but it ends with him telling them to work it out among themselves, he washes his hands of it.

So the goddesses, they find this passing shepherd, right? Guy named Paris, minding his own business, just walking by with some sheep or whatever. The goddesses tell him to decide who gets the apple. And since this is greek mythology, of course they all try to bribe him.

Athena offers him wisdom and victory in battle.

Hera offers him wealth and power.

Aphrodite offers him the most beautiful woman in the world and he says, “Sold!” and gives her the apple.

Turns out the most beautiful woman in the world just happened to be Helen, wife of King Menelaus. With Aphrodite's help, Paris kidnaps her, igniting the Trojan war. You know, the first war among humans.

Because Eris wasn't invited to a party. 

I wonder how Odysseus felt about that. All that bother for some petty bullshit between the gods? Do you think he had nightmares about the hours spent in that goddamned horse, sitting silently in the dark, not knowing if the ruse was working or if the Trojans were quietly packing the bottom with kindling? What about later, after his ruse did work and he was setting fire to a city full of women and children?

But, then again, he was the only mortal to hear the sirens' song and live to tell about it, right?

That's the way the apple rolls, I guess.