Gods, Giants, and Automata: An Interview with Blood of Zeus Creators Charles and Vlas Parlapanides
Courtesy of Greek Hollywood Reporter. Left: Vlas Parlapanides. Right: Charles Parlapanides.
Navigating the journey of Heron, a demigod son of Zeus, Netflix’s animated series Blood of Zeus is an electric and richly-illustrated ode to the timeless gods, creatures, and scenery of Greek mythology while representing contemporary dichotomies of sanctity and violence, the godly and the fallible. By rendering the show as a tale “misplaced” and forgotten from the prolific oral tradition of Greek storytelling, creators and brothers Charles and Vlas Parlapanides—the former being a Swarthmore alumnus of ‘99—have carved out the perfect space to understand otherness and archival silence.
Interview with Charles and Vlas Parlapanides
Anoushka Subbaiah: Firstly, I'd like to congratulate both of you on creating this powerful and thoughtful show. When grappling with something that's as fabled and learned as Greek mythology, I feel as though it would be quite easy to slip into the comfort of what is tried and true, but I think Blood of Zeus has an almost self-aware gaze to it. I think an example of this is an interview you did with Kate Sànchez, where you pointed out that there are no defined villains in the story. You managed to pay homage to these treasured character tropes, but I feel like they were seamlessly deconstructed at the same time. I was wondering if you could tell me more about that.
Charles Parlapanides: That’s very well said, by the way.
Vlas Parlapanides: That’s a Swarthmore question!
CP: Very astute. Listen, we preface this with a simple statement that we always say: this isn’t our story, this is Greece’s story. We’re standing on the shoulders of this incredible body of literature—and though we say “literature,” it was never written down. As we’ve mentioned to other people, there was never an ecumenical council, like in the case of the Bible, where they said this is the one definitive version, but instead there are all these iterations. They’re these amazing stories that have endured for thousands of years. If you look at our pop culture, the fundamental background of, say, Star Wars, and superhero movies is derived from Greek mythology, and it’s these same recurring tropes. Part of it is that these gods were anthropomorphic deities. They were flawed, like us. They weren't all-knowing and all-powerful and always righteous. That makes them incredibly human. I think that's why these stories have endured.
Greek myths are ripe for adaptation now more than ever, but when you pitch it to Hollywood executives and producers, they don't necessarily feel that way. They may say they love these stories, but there is this feeling that it's been adapted again and again. So part of it is finding a fresh way in.
The one thing that we said we wanted to do is to reclaim or at least repurpose the “hero's journey” because everything in popular culture now is about the antihero. Whenever you deal with an antihero, the villain has to be an even worse version of that antihero. We just miss the hero's journey, but part of it is that your villain is always a reflection of your hero. So, if we were going to do a traditional hero's journey, we didn't want villains—we wanted antagonists. To be honest, when we were first writing the scripts, it was brought up that Seraphim [Heron’s antagonistic half-brother] might be too sympathetic. He still does a lot of terrible things, but aren't the best villains the ones you empathize with and understand where they're coming from? I think that only helps the material. People think the show is an incredibly rich world with rich characters, but much of that is the source material. We can’t even take credit for that, in our opinion.
Courtesy of Netflix. Seraphim’s character sheet.
VP: We have great respect for that source material and wanted to treat it with a certain amount of respect while also bringing something new to it. The way we were able to bring something new, well, it's right there in those opening credits. It's this idea that Greek mythology was an oral tradition and has been passed down from generation to generation. It wasn't written. Well, what if one of these tales had been lost? And what if we postulate that this is one of those tales? So we were able to maintain a certain level of respect for those tales that we all love while also telling a story that was original.
CP: It’s very telling and wise that you used the word “deconstruct,” because if you look at the underpinnings of this story, it's really a deconstruction of the Hercules story—but you can't pitch Hercules. Again, people are tired—all due respect to Ryan Gosling and the Rock who’ve played different iterations of him—of it.
In the myth, Hercules’ mother was a queen and married to the King, but Zeus disguised himself as the King and impregnated her. She ended up giving birth to twins, but no one ever talks about Hercules’ brother, Iphicles. When we were approaching this story, we said, “Well, in Hercules, the King considers it a great honor and takes Hercules under his wing.” Part of us then asked, “What if the King didn't feel that way? What if the King hated the fact that his wife, you know, ‘cheated’ on him and bore the son of a God?” Iphicles does become a minor hero in Greek mythology and goes on to journey with Jason and the Argonauts. We then thought, “Is there a way Hercules and he could be adversaries?” All we really did was take Hercules, deconstruct it, and rearrange its dramatic components. But you have to give it a new name, because if you said, “We want to pitch a re-imagined version of Hercules,” then forget it. They won't even take the meeting. What we had to do was deconstruct it and pitch it as something new, but really we're just using that same sandbox that the Greeks already created.
VP: I agree. You know, Blood of Zeus is the perfect amalgamation of deconstruction while also being respectful to those Greek mythological tales.
AS: In the aforementioned interview, you also established that the show unfolds in a post-mythological era where some characters have fulfilled their canonical arcs. Was this narrative decision a way for you to diverge in some capacity from classic Greek mythology? And for those who may not be as familiar with Greek myths, are there any other elements of the show that wander away from convention?
CP: That’s a very wise question, because doing that allowed us to use all of the canon of Greek mythology and have creative license because Greek mythology just kind of ends — it isn’t like Norse mythology, where they have a Ragnarök storyline and an eventual end of times. Basic Christianity overtook Greek mythology and then it just disappeared. That leaves the door open to say, “Okay, all of these things happened in the canon and now here comes our story. Our story is after everything you know!” And so that’s a way to find creative license.
VP: People who are familiar with Greek mythology are able to watch it and be like, “Oh, that was actually something that was in Greek mythology. Oh, this part of the story over here is something that the guys created.” There’s a certain level of fun when you can identify which is which.
AS: I think placing those little easter eggs is such a great way to have a sense of dialogue with viewers. I want to talk about the visual fabric of the show, which is gorgeous. There are these micro-movements and expressions that stay with you—a favorite of mine was when the soul of Heron’s mother, Electra, sort of molts from her body. How did your team decide upon the level of detail that the animation is going to be narrowed down to? How do you know when to step away?
CP: We have to give credit to our director, Shaunt Nigoghossian. He just did an incredible job. One of the things that we discussed when we first started is, “What is going to be the visual style of the show?” What we talked about was making it as cinematic as possible.
People always say, “This [Blood of Zeus] is an anime.” We don't disagree because anime, traditionally, is hand-drawn, two-dimensional, and from Japan. Ours is hand-drawn, two-dimensional, and from Texas and South Korea. We understand the purist argument, but one thing that is kind of a tried and true trope of anime is a lot of static shots, where there’s a beautiful drawing and the camera slowly pans over it as whole conversations unfold, then they’ll cut to a static image of something else. But what we told Shaunt is that we wanted it to feel as cinematic as possible. For him, that meant seeing those reaction shots. A lot of the time in animation you have these static shots to save money and labor—but we wanted to sell the moments so that they land emotionally. Those little reaction shots and moments of surprise—that’s the cinematic language we all speak now because we all consume so much TV and movies. It's slightly different in animation, but Shaunt brought that cinematic approach here and it helps sell moments. When Electra realizes she's no longer in her body and her soul is being taken away, you should feel that. And you could do it in the more traditional anime sense and maybe have half as many shots. Those individual shots would maybe be kind of “better looking.” They always say in animation to never press pause because you'll hate the frame you see. In anime, they do fewer shots, but they make it more beautiful. We took the approach of “No, let's just focus more on the emotion of storytelling.” And even if you hit pause and each shot might not be a perfect frame, hopefully as you watch the show, you'll just be caught up in the emotion of it, you know?
VP: This is the first project we were involved creatively throughout the entire process from the inception of idea to the completion of the show. Every little moment mattered to us. And as Charlie said, the big emphasis was emotion. It's about the characters and what they want, and really understanding what that emotion is and making sure that the audience does, too. We had these great discussions with our director, Shaunt, who we were very blessed to work with. The beauty of working with him was he was able to visualize, that he was able to not only make it cinematic, but make it resonate.
We have to give credit to Shaunt and the creative and talented artists at Powerhouse Animation who contributed. We took on what Spielberg once said: best idea wins. With every facet of the show, the best idea won whether it was what this helmet should look like, what the shield should look like, what this moment should be, what the soul should look like. Till the closing credits, there was always an attention to detail and that's something that is important to Charlie and me, and thank God it was something that was also very important to Shaunt.
AS: I think there's this delicate interplay between beauty and hyper-violence in the show. There are these scenes that should be painful and grotesque to witness, but they're so visually-striking, and even elegant. Are there any kinds of anime that you looked to for guidance during this particular stylistic approach?
CP: That approach, interestingly enough, comes from Swarthmore and reading Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane in a Religion course I took there. That's something that we talked about ad nauseum with Shaunt, about the sacred and the profane and the juxtaposition of the two. Now listen, we love Cowboy Bebop. We love Ninja Scroll. If you watch anime, it's pretty violent. I think our show is less violent than some of those shows, but sometimes I feel like, “Oh my God, are we desensitized?” because there are people that have watched it and said, “It's so gruesome!” I think we're not as bad as some other shows, but that element is very much in the milieu of anime.
VP: It's something that we wanted to explore and we think that there’s something fascinating about the sacred and profane. We feel that the show is violent, but it's not gratuitous. It was a violent world, but there's also an inspirational component to the show. We feel it's important to have both.
CP: I was reading an ancient history book in which after the Persians attacked Greece, the Athenians went to their former allies that provided shelter to Xerxes’ army, and you wouldn’t believe the way they killed them! They stoned the King's children in front of him, took the King, trapped him within a tree trunk, and covered him with honey so that insects and animals would eat him. I'm like, “These are the Athenians! These are supposed to be like the high intellectuals of the ancient world.” Knowing this was part of that world, we felt that it was okay to be true to that time. We thought it worked. Netflix wanted it to be epic, and to have action and violence. And so that's why that's all in there.
VP: I would say we stayed true to the mythological tales and that's why it worked. In the tales, they showcase extremes: extreme violence, but also extreme sacrifice. There's great love and exaggerated anger. These things are innate to those tales. I don't know how and why exactly it works, but it does.
AS: As a member of Generation Z, the body of Greek mythology that I knew and loved was Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. I’m very nostalgic about it. I think, as a 13 year-old, I was really charmed by Riordan’s modern and humorous rewriting of legends that could often feel solemn and high-stakes. This is a universe where Ares drives a Harley Davidson, Dionysus wears Hawaiian shirts and drinks Diet Coke, and Mt. Olympus is located on the 600th floor of the Empire State building. Aesthetically, Blood of Zeus could not be more different. I’m curious about what the both of you think of this Americanized, satirical narrative landscape — what qualms do you have with it? What can you appreciate about it?
CP: We have no qualms whatsoever. My daughter, who is 12, has read all the books and she loves them. Anything that promotes Greek mythology and Greek heritage, we're all for.
VP: I agree with Charlie. Anything that can get kids to read, either by themselves or with their parents. One of my best friends reads the stories to his boys—how beautiful is that? That's a memory that they're all going to have and share. It’s why we do what we do.
CP: To be honest, we're grateful because I think part of the reason why your generation has an affinity towards Greek mythology is because you loved Percy Jackson and you knew who these characters were. I actually think our show benefited as your generation tuned in because of Percy Jackson.
AS: Interestingly, a similarity between Blood of Zeus and Percy Jackson is the humanizing of larger-than-life deities. Through starkly contrasting vehicles, I think both of these series challenge power structures, one example being through female characters who have traditionally been misunderstood and deflated into wearisome tropes. My favorite imagery from the show included those stunning, lavender-tinged stills of Hera where her face is contorted into rage and grief — they exude a quiet and piercing feminine power. It reminds me so much of Aphrodite’s depiction in Percy Jackson, where her forces of love manage to be tender and debilitating at once, completely overshadowing the more brute, one-dimensional strength of her male counterparts.
Courtesy of Netflix. Still of Electra and her soul.
CP: That’s a very interesting point. One thing Shaunt wanted to do was to not only give certain gods and goddesses a color but give sequences of theirs that same color so we understand that this is their moment. We grew up around Greek women, and all the Greek women we've ever known were incredibly strong. For us, the Greek woman is a warrior, a mother, and a goddess. That's what Alexia, Electra, and Hera represent, and we wanted to try and make them as strong as possible. There are different iterations of Greek mythology, but there's one story where Hera was initially the queen of the heavens. Part of us felt like, “Oh, wow, if she was queen of the heavens, she must've been strong enough that her other siblings listened to her. So what if we could have a situation where Zeus is powerful, but she’s really the puppet master?” We just looked for little clues within mythology to speak to her characterization.
VP: She’s not only strong, though it was very important to us that she was strong, and that she had an iron will—our mom has an iron will, and so that was imbued in Hera, but she’s also just smarter, to be honest. It’s really fun to see her kind of “play” Zeus, and that’s something critics have responded to. We have a really cool arc for Hera, and without giving anything away, I think people will be very pleasantly surprised with regards to where she ends up.
CP: Another Swarthmore reference: I took two classes with Professor Hungerford, who teaches Art History, and I remember we studied the Pietà, where Mary’s holding Jesus. Looking at the iconography of that, this is the first time motherhood was viewed as something powerful and something worthy. We’re crossing generic Christian and Greek mythological tropes, but that's something we thought bore importance, to make Heron’s mom Electra very strong. When Christianity came to Greece, the reason they embraced it so quickly is that they believed if someone was really spectacular, they were the son of a god.
AS: I wanted to know if you have a favorite contemporary adaptation of Greek myths where creative liberties are taken, and/or if you have plans for something of that nature in the future?
CP: A great book for anyone out there, especially at Swarthmore, is Circe by Madeline Miller. I was blown away by it. It takes place in the world of Greek mythology, but it’s a reimagining of all the stories she appears in into one narrative. HBO’s in the process of adapting it now.
VP: I love that book. I love the way that the author writes. It’s so beautiful and poetic. I’m very curious to see how the show turns out and what choices they made.
CP: Video games have also done justice to Greek mythology. I love God of War. I thought that Hades, the new kind of indie game that's out there, was a hilarious take on Greek mythology. The act of dying and responding is actually part of the narrative, and I thought that was genius.
AS: Something I’m really interested in is what the devising process looked like in the context of the both of you being brothers. From the interviews I’ve read I get a sense that you’ve continued this oral and familial tradition of storytelling in your own way while writing the show, and I’d like to know more about that.
VP: I've said it before and I'll say it again—I'm very blessed that I'm working with Charlie because he has these great big ideas and you're only as good as the big idea you're writing about. Sometimes it's “Well, what themes do we want to explore?” or “What characters do we want to explore?” Sometimes it's an amalgamation of both. The beauty of having a writing partner is going back and forth with different ideas. I would say that we believe in research, whether it's the physical research of reading up on a certain subject or a certain character, or other type of research that Syd Field talks about in Screenplay. That's the research where you have to really know who your characters are. You spend time just thinking about who they are and what they've done up until the point of when the story begins.
CP: It’s in our blood, in a sense. Our last name is Parlapanides. When you see a Greek name with “-ides,” it means they’re from Asia Minor. It’s almost like the Irish.
VP: Yeah, like McDonald means “Son of Donald.”
CP: So Parlapanides means “Son of Parlapan,” and Parlapan means “to speak, or to tell stories.” Essentially we’re the sons of someone who liked to talk a lot. That is intrinsically a big part of our job. Because we’re brothers and from a big Greek immigrant family, we’ve always worked together. Us Greeks, we share our feelings, we wear them on our sleeves. And I do think it helps us. In terms of Blood of Zeus being about two brothers, those familial bonds are something we’ve always felt comfortable working with, and it’s something we understand.
AS: This question is mostly posed to Charley. I understand that your relationship with Netflix Executive John Derderian, who is also a Swarthmore alum, was central to sealing the show’s fate and realizing this story’s potential. What was the influence of Swarthmore’s education on your trajectory as a storyteller? What creative seeds were planted here?
CP: I think the answer is twofold. At Swarthmore I learned to work hard, deal with adversity, and to be undaunted, because what I’ve always felt is that people at Swarthmore, they found a way. You didn't shy away from the work. You just pulled your bootstraps up and found a way. I think that's been integral to our careers as writers. I know that I wouldn’t have been able to do this job if I didn't have the experiences that I've had at Swarthmore. I felt like when I walked out of there, I had this armor on and I was ready to take the best punches the world could throw at me. I learned to become a voracious reader at Swarthmore. You'll do more reading than you ever would there. Learning to push yourself gave me the toughness to deal with our business, because our business is very precarious. It's a gig economy. You also have to learn how to deal with rejection and failure. You don't get a paycheck every two weeks. Your next job could be your last. As a writer, you always have to be generating ideas. After being exposed to so many ideas at Swarthmore, I know that I have these places to pull from that I've found to be invaluable.
AS: That was a great answer, thank you for that. As a fun last question, do either of you have a favorite figure in Greek mythology and why?
CP: I know in Greek mythologies Zeus was kind of a terrible guy. He would definitely get locked up in the modern world. That said, growing up, I always was just kind of enamored with Zeus. Seeing the original Clash of the Titans with Laurence Olivier, there was this grandiose kind of power. As you get older and you read more stories, you realize he's kind of a bad guy, but because I liked him as a kid, I still have a great affinity for him. There's a line we have in the next season: “He's complicated, which is just a nice way of saying ‘flawed’.” He’s deeply flawed, but he's still my favorite, if you had to put a gun to my head.
VP: It's difficult to kind of say, “Okay, this is my favorite mythological character.” I would say I have a favorite mythological idea. And that idea is that it's important for everyone to be true to themselves. The Greeks felt that everyone had a calling, a task of sorts and that some people didn't pursue that because they were afraid to really be the person that they were meant to be. It's not easy to be the best version of yourself, but I feel that the Greeks always strive to be the best versions of themselves. I've always loved that idea and I think it's a beautiful, relatable one.
AS: That reminds me of why Greek mythology was such a source of escapism for me, growing up. Just the thought of being a demigod and having your celestial lineage decide your traits and individual aesthetic for you was something I constantly daydreamed about.
CP: Dovetailing into what Vlas said, the ancient Greeks believed in striving for excellence, that there was a special place in Hades’ for people that lived their life in fear, and that we should strive to do something that will be remembered. That’s a very Swarthmorean ideal.
The content of this interview has been edited for clarity and concision. To read the unedited transcript of this interview, click here.