Helen

Speaking of Greek mythology popping up in Legends of Tomorrow, Angela makes me notice that I missed yet another character, this time from Season 3: Helen of Troy, portrayed by Bar Paly. First appearing in Helen Hunt, the most beautiful woman in the world, cursed to make any man love her at first glance and fight over her, becomes an anachronism the moment she’s brought to 1937 Hollywood, where she becomes the most popular actress of her time, stealing the spot of Hedy Lamarr. Instead of bringing her back to Troy during the war, Zari defies her orders and brings her to Themyscira, where she is trained to be an Amazon, ready to come back to assist the Legends against Mallus in The Good, the Bad and the Cuddly. In the comics, Helen appears several times, usually to seduce the main hero away from the love interest. Let’s take a look.

According to the myth, Helen was born when Zeus seduced Leda, wife of Tyndareus King of Sparta, and impregnated her while in the form of a swan. Helen was born from an egg, along with her twin brothers Castor and Pollux, and she grew up to become the most beautiful woman the world had ever seen. When she was still a ten years old girl, Helen was kidnapped by Theseus, who wanted to marry a divine woman, but she was eventually saved by her brothers. This was the first, but certainly not the last time men fought over her. When she came of age, Tyndareus invited powerful kings to Sparta as suitors, and all Greece seemed to be reunited there for a chance to marry Helen: Tyndareus was afraid of causing a war choosing a suitor over another, by the wise Odysseus advised him to make all the kings swear an oath, according to which all the present kings would have run into defense of the husband of Helen, if his wife was ever taken from him. This way, all the suitors were bound to respect the will of the Spartan king, or else they would have faced the retaliation of the entire Greece. Eventually, Helen was won by Menelaus, who became the new king of Sparta, and ruled with wisdom by her side. The two had a daughter, Hermione, and lived happily for almost ten years. Then, on the other side of the sea, the Trojan prince Paris was called to be a judge in a beauty contest among goddesses, and between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, he chose the latter, obtaining as a reward the chance to claim the most beautiful woman in the world as his own. Of course Paris, invited as guest in Sparta, was immediately smitten by Helen, and he used the power of the Golden Apple Aphrodite had given to him to make the woman follow him. The queen was abducted during the night, and brought to Troy as Paris’ wife. Since the oath was still valid, Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus, was put in charge of an immense army, composed of all the greatest kings and heroes of Greece, and led it against Troy, in modern Turkey, to reclaim Helen for Menelaus. The Trojan War, the greatest conflict of the mythical era, had begun, and all in name of an innocent woman who had never been part of the choices over her life.

What the myth doesn’t tell, is about the times Helen had contacts with times different from her own. Once, for example, she was taken by a man dressed in weird robes, who called himself the Time Master, and brought to Hollywood in the 1960s, to take part to a beauty contest against women like the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, the Arabian singer Sheherazade and the Eastern Roman Empress Theodora, and some movie stars of the time; as the movie director B.B. was ready to fix the contest, the Time Master brought all the time-displaced contestants home. Another time, Helen was contacted by Supergirl, a divine being who was looking for a worthy wife to her cousin Superman, but even the latter’s incredible skills failed to impress her, amidst the already superhuman Greek heroes. Helen met again Superman, this time younger, when she was forcibly taken to the future by Lana Lang, who was in possession of the Devil Mask and could summon whoever she wanted from the past, binding them to her will, and once again when Superman, who was challenging his girlfriend Lois Lane to guess who he really was, replaced Helen with Lois, demanding her to recognize him among the crowd of warriors, one of which he was replacing in turn. Her image was then summoned to the future by Ares, the God of War, who wanted to convince one of her descendants, Helen Alexandros, to become the Silver Swan and fight for him against Wonder Woman. Also in these occasions, Helen had little choice of her own, always taken for a brief time from the reality of her time, and then brought back where she belonged, in the midst of a war she hadn’t wanted, seeing the blood of friends and relatives being spilled in her name. She hated the coward Paris for what she had done to her, and she would have killed herself if only the gods would have allowed her to, to stop the war. Helen, though, was the first to realize the truth behind the war: she had been the pawn of the gods, who sought to end the age of heroes with a massive conflict, as heroes were too many and too powerful, and would have eventually challenged the gods. Helen couldn’t die, nor she could return to her rightful husband: she had to stand on Troy’s walls, a silent witness to the greatest massacre of ancient history.

Helen of Troy, actually Helen of Sparta, is a tragic figure, doomed to be the axis of the greatest conflict witnessed in the Age of Heroes, always being manipulated by divine forces beyond her control. Intelligent and compassionate, she suffers for all the pain she’s unwillingly causing, and she’s brave enough to will for her own death to stop the carnage, but gods have other plans for her, and won’t allow her to end her life. Beautiful beyond measure, to the point that no man can resist her, Helen is a victim of her own divine heritage, a woman whose face can move ships to war, but who lacks the power to control her own fate, always decided by men and gods alike.