There are plenty of stories of gods flexing their powers in a direct, aggressive way, blasting thunderbolts and whatnot to demand the attention they want. But this is not the only way deities can remind others what they are capable of; in some stories, they do the exact opposite and simply withhold their power, causing at least as much harm.
This seems to be a reaction particularly applicable to goddesses. There are several stories from mythologies across the world where displeased goddesses withdraw and hide, taking their unique domain of power with them and making the world suffer. Now that’s a power move, dear Zeus et al!
The first story that might come to mind is that of Demeter, Greek goddess of the harvest. Demeter is so grief-stricken after the kidnapping of her daughter Persephone by her brother Hades that she abandons the world, leading the land to lose all its fertility. By just disappearing, Demeter is able to disrupt life itself.
In this story, the other gods eventually negotiate for Demeter that her daughter can return to her, but only for half of the year, each year. Since then, the goddess laments whenever mother and daughter are separated and rejoices when they are together. Nature must mourn and celebrate with her, leading to cold and barren fields during winter and flourishing crops during the other.
There are many other stories of goddesses that go into hiding from the world, driven by a variety of emotions: from sadness and disappointment to rage, indignation and shock. What makes them leave – and do they come back? How do we see their stories reapplied in modern fiction – especially those with a speculative element? Let’s take a look!
Myths of grieving goddesses
Like Demeter, several other goddesses disappear because they are bereaved by the death or disappearance of a loved one. When one of her prized weavers dies at the hand of her twin brother, Amaterasu-Ōmikami, radiant goddess of the sun and chief deity of Shintoism, is overcome by grief and guilt, and hides herself in a cave. The goddess‘s disappearance plunges the world into darkness.
The majority of this story focuses on how Amaterasu is wooed back from her cave by the other gods, who organise loud parties and leave gifts outside the entrance, hoping to pique the goddess’s curiosity. Finally, it is a clever trick triggering Amaterasu’s vanity that makes her come back out. The gods pretend an even more radiant goddess has arrived, and a jealous Amaterasu looks outside immediately – who could possibly dare to try and take her place?
What she sees outside turns out to be a mirror the Gods have placed there, in which Amaterasu sees her own reflection. Realising the world cannot survive without her light, she comes back to her rightful place.
Amaterasu’s myth is strikingly similar to that of the Cherokee’s sun goddess Unelanuhi, whose daughter is accidentally killed by a serpent actually meant to kill the goddess herself. Unelanuhi locks herself into her hut, wailing with sadness and taking the sunlight with her. Balance in nature is eventually restored when the people play music for her, making her forget her grief. When Unelanuhi momentarily does remember her pain, floods are said to occur.
Finally, one of the seminal stories in ancient Egyptian mythology also has a grieving, retreating goddess at its heart. Isis, who governs over many domains, intensely mourns her husband Osiris when he is killed by their evil brother Set. She leaves Egypt to search for the body parts of her dead husband, her sadness and absence leaving the land barren.
Isis manages to collect Osiris’s body parts and revive him, but must accept that her husband, though revived, still remains dead, and will never return to life on earth. Instead, he will rule the Underworld, judging the newly dead that wish to enter it. Isis accepts her loss, consoled by the fact that Osiris will remain whole and fulfill a new purpose elsewhere. By her acceptance, the land becomes fertile again.
We can see that all of these grieving goddesses must grapple with the fact that things will never be as they were again, and find a way to reclaim their joy despite the loss they have incurred.
Goddesses disappointed with mankind
Some withdrawing goddesses grieve a more symbolic death; they feel disillusioned with mankind’s unethical behaviour.
Themis, Greek goddess of law and justice, is unimpressed with man’s corrupt ways and leaves the earthly realm, ironically causing even further lawlessness and disorder to spread about. She never returns, symbolising how corruption is still significant to date.
Similarly, Egyptian goddess of order and balance, Ma’at, is disappointed by how wicked humans can be and how their behaviour constantly disrupts a peaceful balance in the world. She too then leaves for the heavens, never to return to earth fully. But when called upon by individuals, Ma’at accompanies and protects them, symbolising that an individual still has the choice of doing the right thing. She only gives her protection to the worthy and no longer to humanity as a whole.
In Aztec mythology, earth goddess Coatlicue is saddened by the Mexica people’s violent subjugation of others, so she leaves for the top of the mountain Coatepec, causing capital city Tenochtitlan to suffer severe drought for years. The goddess also complains that her son Huitzilopochtli has abandoned her – this son is in fact the god of war, and his leaving her therefore symbolises what he – and by extension, the Mexica people – have become.
King Motecuhzoma tries to convince her to come back, but in vain. Coatlicue predicts to him that as the Mexica have destroyed others, others will come to destroy them. Her words leave Motecuhzoma repentant of his people’s imperialistic behaviour and neglect of family life. He accepts that violence only begets further violence and because of this, his doom too, will come one day.
These disappointed goddesses stick to their decision to leave humanity forever – and for good reason. Rather than undergoing an inner journey during their retreat that changes them enough to come back, their withdrawal is a commentary on the state of the world.
Hurt and scorned goddesses
Abandoning humanity takes a more personal turn in Hindu mythology. At the very end of the epic Ramayana, Sita (who, in the epic, is a mortal princess, but born as an incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi) asks her mother, the Earth, to swallow her up, feeling disappointed and hurt in her husband, king Rama.
Reason being that he has repeatedly tried to prove to the people in his kingdom – through tests of fire and the like – that his wife did not have sex with Ravana, the villain of the epic, while in his captivity. One can easily understand Sita’s scorn and hurt; after undergoing the trauma of kidnapping and captivity, her husband is concerned with her ‘virtue’ on several occasions, supposedly not because he doubts her himself, but because he has to ‘save face’ in his kingdom.
Sita is swallowed up by the earth as requested and never seen again. Though the king is sad to live out the rest of his days without his wife and the city has lost its queen, nobody comes looking for Sita. Her disappearance somewhat reminds us of Themis, Ma’at and Coatlicue because it has disillusionment with society at its heart. But its catalyst, this time, is personal hurt and humiliation.
Where Sita’s feelings of scorn take an inward, disappointed turn, Egyptian mythology offers a unique example of a scorned goddess abandoning her people. Tefnut, goddess of dew and moisture, withdraws and withholds driven not by a passive sadness, but by fury. It is a curious example, as wrathful gods usually go for unleashing it.
When Tefnut is forbidden by her father Ra from attending a festival given in her honour and mingling with the people worshipping her, she flies into a rage. Who is Ra to tell her what she can and cannot do – and that too during a festival specially meant for her? Indignant, she leaves for Nubia, plunging Egypt into complete drought.
Ra’s ego stands in the way of his asking Tefnut to come back, so he employs the diplomatic ibis-headed (and, presumably, also level-headed) god Thoth instead. This god reminds Tefnut who she is truly punishing with her absence; not her authoritarian father, but the people that love her so. The goddess sees that Thoth is right and returns to Egypt, where Ra agrees to no longer stand in her way.
Tefnut’s withdrawal is driven by hot rage, but with Yhi, sun goddess of the Gamilaraay people of Australia, a more cold and calculative fury comes into play. Yhi wishes to have the affections of moon god Bahloo, but he rejects her advances. The goddess decides she won’t take no for an answer; even if Bahloo does not want her, she will chase him forever anyway. But to do that, she must first trap Bahloo in the sky, so that he has no way to disappear from her sight.
For this, Yhi needs the help of the sky spirits. She negotiates with them and coldly uses her powers as a bargaining chip ; the spirits must hold the Moon captive so she can eternally pursue him. If they ever let him escape, Yhi vows to plunge the world into darkness. Here, the goddess withdraws her power with seemingly no emotion at all, but perhaps driven by (very toxic) feelings of humiliation and rejection.
These examples show us that offended goddesses can follow different journeys. Whether withdrawing for need of self-care and healing or refusing to bow to the will of others, they only give the gift of their power and presence again if pacified.
Distilling the goddess withdrawal motif
What seems to unite all these withdrawing goddesses is a sense of purposelessness caused by the behaviour of others around them. How they process what happened to them, and pit the value of their power to the world against the grievances they feel is key to how their stories end.
Regardless of the type of emotions they face, all goddesses either tackle their inner demons and come back with a regained sense of self (as Amaterasu and Tefnut do), or they conclude the world indeed does not deserve them, and they stay away (like Themis, Coatlicue and Sita). Some may return only within certain limits or if specific conditions are met (like Ma’at, Demeter and Unelanuhi).
Now let’s look at some modern examples of goddess withdrawal (Please note: the rest of this article will contain spoilers for : Disney’s Frozen (2013), The Curse of Chalion (2001) written by Lois McMaster Bujold, Wild (2014) directed by Reese Witherspoon, Aap ki Kasam (1974) directed by J. Om Prakash).
Modern examples – self-isolating and returning characters
The returning goddess gives hope for positive change within oneself, and can make for a beautiful character arc. One of my favourite storytelling experts, K.M. Weiland, talks about the Crone character arc, where a wise, elderly figure close to Death must make a journey to the Underworld, retreating, healing and realizing their life is not yet at its end. Weiland says the following about this Arc that reminded me very much of our goddesses:
‘(The Crone) gave it all, perhaps graciously but certainly not without heartbreak, in order to secure the Kingdom for her successors and journey on into the twilight….She is resigned to Death but still afraid of it…Therefore, hers is an arc from disempowerment to empowerment…She has retreated to the hut in the woods in order to integrate, to process, to lick her wounds, and to grieve. (Her journey) has demanded the complete death of the person she was….Her challenge, then, is to decide whether she will now accept the call to be rebirthed.’
In modern fantasy, the story of Ista in The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold is a great example of a powerful character grieving, retreating and eventually reclaiming her power. Ista is a former queen mother that has retreated from society and political life. She feels wounded, having lost both her husband and son. To add to her grief, she is misunderstood and treated differently for her extraordinary connection to the Gods. She embarks on a pilgrimage, seeking to escape her life and to heal.
On her journey, she learns to embrace and reclaim her power with the Gods and refashion her role in society. By overcoming past hurt, she learns to harness the very power she was shunned for earlier and use it for the good of the realm. Interestingly, Ista doesn’t return to the same place, but redirects her power to a place where it is more appreciated.
In Disney’s Frozen (2013), Princess Elsa is terrified of her ice-creating magical powers and runs off to the North Mountain where she hopes to avoid doing anyone harm. But ironically, her uncontrolled emotions are what plunges her kingdom into eternal winter.
Coaxed to come back by her sister Anna, she realises accepting herself just as she is essential to harnessing her powers. When she overcomes her fear, she is able to use her ice magic for the benefit of her people. Interestingly, Disney employs a new emotion at the core of goddess withdrawal and return; fear, and that too of oneself.
Outside of speculative stories, the 2014 movie Wild, Reese Witherspoon’s directorial debut, comes to mind. It is clear from the beginning that protagonist Cheryl is grieving; the loss of her mother and her failed marriage have her exhibiting self-destructive behavior. Untill she decides to go on a journey through the Pacific Crest Trail. Alone. Isolating herself in the wilderness, she heals, accepts that life goes on despite pain, and finds a renewed inner strength and purpose to begin life anew.
Modern examples – characters that won’t return (just like that)
All the goddesses that stay away conclude that energy should only go to the deserving. They also remind us that giving one’s energy freely ultimately has a limit; whether that limit is a lesson those on the receiving end must learn, one’s own personal boundaries and self-respect – or both.
In good ole’ The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, hope must survive in a world that even the elves have abandoned. Even before the end of the First Age, elves have been departing from Middle-Earth for the Grey Havens never to return, having lost faith in mankind and their corrupt ways.
Used this way, the ‘goddess’ withdrawal motif makes for a compelling backdrop. It is one of the reasons LotR is so evocative. Who will find the courage to return integrity to the world, when even the fairest of beings have abandoned all hope? It is both discouraging to the hero(es) in the story and an urgent call to action they must respond to.
A withdrawing goddess returning only on certain conditions is Ragda in The Sweet Salt of the Earth by – dingdingding! – yours truly (soon to be released in English! You can read the Dutch version in Out Of This World magazine here).
Ragda is the goddess of roots and all things beneath the earth. She feels hurt and humiliated by how the other gods and her worshippers treat her. One day, she has had enough and what she does next will change the world forever. All I’ll say now is; her hurt turns to rage and then, a very specific kind of cold fury…
Outside of speculative stories, one ‘goddess’ that clearly isn’t taking any nonsense is the main character in yesteryears’ Bollywood film ‘Aap ki Kasam’ (1974). At the start of this story, Sunita (played by Mumtaz) and Kamal are a happily married couple ready to start family life. But soon, Kamal becomes increasingly jealous of the friendly bond between his wife and their neighbour Mohan, ultimately accusing her of having cheated on him and even disbelieving that he is the father of Sunita’s baby.
Infuriated, Sunita leaves her husband immediately and doesn’t look back. She eventually finds love again and settles into a happy life. At the end of the film, a regretful Kamal has learned his lesson and redeems himself – even though he does not get his wife back.
What’s interesting about Sunita’s arc is that she wastes little time grieving; she already knows her power from the start. The story’s arc is in essence more about Kamal, who doesn’t realise his mistake until it is too late. The goddess withdrawal is then, a crucial driver for the story, with growth having to come from another character. We are reminded of Coatlicue leaving man behind, acknowledging the regret he eventually feels but firm in her decision to stay away.
What are other examples of goddess withdrawal you can think of? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!