Imperfections of the Gods

2. For the Greeks, the Gods are personalities with human failings. This is clearly seen in the character of Zeus in books 11-17. Cite some events that show Zeus' weaknesses.

In Greek mythology Gods is viewed as powerful and wise, but it is also evident in Greek mythology the human natured failures in these Gods. One of the greatest examples of which is Zeus. Zeus may be the king of the Gods but he has the most failures. One of which is in book 13 of the Iliad, it is when Zeus was able to help the Trojans to breach the walls of the Achaians. Zeus turned his attention away from the Trojans and left them to fight because he was already confident enough that the Trojan would win. Unfortunately, what Zeus didn’t expect is that Poseidon Earthshaker would go up the shore and help the Achaians to rally because of Poseidon’s indignation against Zeus. We could see here the insolence of Zeus Cloudgatherer, where he overlooked the fact that there is still a chance that a God would help the Achaians especially since most of the Gods hate him or at least have tried to bring him down from his throne.  

Another failure of Zeus Cloudgatherer is his inability to control his sexual urges. Like in book 14, Hera seduced Zeus Cloudgatherer, but what Zeus didn’t know is that it was a part of the plan of Hera which resulted to Zeus Cloudgatherer to fall asleep. Poseidon getting the news of zeus falling asleep, from Sleep, grabbed the chance to help the Achaians more, which eventually led to Trojans loss of men. Another failure of Zeus because of his sex drive is, Zeus having children from different women, which was said by Zeus himself in book 14 when he tried to describe his love for Hera. So in all we can not say that the gods in Greek mythology is perfect because in reality the Gods are made by men, so the qualities of these Gods are the same qualities that the men of Greece wanted themselves like the ability of Zeus to seduce different women.