What is the theme for the Greek myth Hephaestus?

Answer 1

Hera used to be a great and powerful goddess until Zeus moved in and they got married (patriarchal gods taking over matriarchal system. The "Greeks" who moved in from the north were the patriarchal ones.)

So, Hera used to be the Queen of Heaven, but after her not-exactly-successful marriage to Zeus, he had a bunch of illegitimate kids around the world, they had one kid (Ares--makes sense, since they hated each other), and Hera had one child. Either she had sex with...some guy...or she made Hephaestus herself. But he was lame, either from birth, or because she got pissed off and threw him down to earth from Mount Olympus (stories vary.)

Basically, it's a way of making Hera even more inferior, by making her into a bad mother who brought forth an ugly child. Poor guy got married to skanky Aphrodite and she skanked around on him all the time. Mainly with Ares.

Oh, the sexist dominant patriarchy! So evil! Poor Hera got turned to a shrew, and Zeus became the supreme (slutty) ruler of heaven. It's not fair.

Answer 2

Though his forge traditionally lay in the heart of Lemnos, Hephaestus was quickly identified by Greek colonists in southern Italy with the volcano gods Adranus of Mount Etna and Vulcanus of the Lipara islands and his forge moved here by the poets; the first-century sage Apollonius of Tyana is said to have observed, "there are many other mountains all over the earth that are on fire, and yet we should never be done with it if we assigned to them giants and gods like Hephaestus

Answer 3

He's the god of the forge. He forged gauntlets for Hercules and many items for the Greek gods and goddesses. He's usually covered in soot.