Pro tip character designers if you're struggling to come up with a monster design
Try just mashing random animals together
Satisfaction guaranteed Works every time!
Ancient Greece was certainly a big fan of the concept
as basically every monster in the mythos is either
regular person or animal with a non-standard number of limbs, heads, or eyes
Or two or more animals mashed together it's usually not even explained why they're like that.
Why's the offspring of Poseidon and medusa a horse with wings? Who knows!
Why do Typhon and Echidna, two mostly humanoid, somewhat snakey monsters
produce several multi-headed dogs and one perfect combo of goat, snake, and lioness?
Primordial genetics is funky like that.
And Jeez, the Minotaur? What unholy union could have made a half bull, half dude?
Well... Actually... That one is pretty straightforward. But you're not gonna like it
Now contextually the Minotaur is a kinda mysterious figure
Because the Minoan civilisation he's derived from is pretty unknown in a lot of ways
It was a powerful bronze-age civilization that flourished on the island of Crete from 3000 BCE to about 1100 BCE
And it's not 100% what caused it to fall apart but it *super* fell apart
So hard we didn't even know it existed until 1900
We have tonnes of their relics and architecture and stuff and also a lot of their writing
But unfortunately we can't understand any of it
Yup it's all in linear A and mysterious hieroglyphs and we can't read any of them
So we kinda have no idea what they were up to
But because of their extensive trade network plenty of civilizations we can understand were influenced by them
And we have lots of myths and stories and maybe even some gods that seem to have been derived from the largely unknown Minoan religion
Now basically everything about that is pure speculation
But if there's one thing we can say with confidence it's that bulls show up a lot, not minotaurs though
While bull-headed humans show up in Greek art about Crete minoan art itself only ever shows regular bulls
The Minotaur is a specifically Greek story about the ancient Minoans
Referencing their widespread bull symbolism by peppering in bulls and bull accessories at regular intervals
It also frames the mythologized Minoan civilization in a generally antagonistic role
Possibly because of all the forced oceanic trade, also known as piracy
So basically it's biased filtered and offset from the source by several centuries
But we have nothing else to go on because we can't read their language
Let this be a PSA Don't let languages die, kids
You're gonna really annoy scholars in like 3000 years
So Anyway The tale of the Minotaur begins with king Minos of Crete
The son of Zeus and Europa So we're already off to a roaring start in the "functional relationships" department
In order to prove that he's a bad enough dude to rule Crete instead of his brothers Rhadamanthys or Sarpedon
Minos calls in a favour from Poseidon who sends him a beautiful snow-white bull
With the understanding that Minos is gonna sacrifice the bull to him afterwards as thanks
Everyone is super impressed with this steak in the making and Minos becomes king
But he's just so impressed with this bull that he refuses to sacrifice it
And swaps it out for a way lamer, super less hot bull
Poseidon is enraged by this slight so he slips Aphrodite a twenty to get her to make Minos' wife Pasiphaë fall in love with the bull
What could go wrong?
But unlike Pasiphaë, the Cretan bull has very high standards
First of all, being a quadruped is a must Second of all, you must also be a cow
Fortunately(?) from a certain point of view
Acclaimed architect, inventor, and future part time aeronaut Daedalus happens to be on Crete at the time
So Pasiphaë commissions him to make a hollow, wooden cow suit for... recreational purposes
Daedalus consummate professional that he is takes the commission with zero outwards judging
-and I'm just gonna skip over this part, because c'mon, we get it
Oh hey where'd that thing come from?
So the Minotaur, as the child-abomination of a truly Beastly relationship doesn't really have a place in the natural order of things
Which unfortunately means he can't really eat anything besides people, tragic
Rather than, I dunno killing him, or letting him starve or something Minos consults the Oracle at Delphi
Who tells him to build that sucker a lavish basement apartment and then throw away the key
Daedalus scores another commission when Minos asks him to build an absolutely massive labyrinth for the Minotaur
Then, to make sure nobody learns how the labyrinth works
Minos locks Daedalus up in a tower with Icarus, 5 tonnes of supplies, and every tool ever made
That oughta hold them
But that's a story for uh, 4 years ago apparently
So anyway With the Minotaur functionally imprisoned in a really big impossibly complicated maze
That fixes the potential rampage problem, but still leaves the whole food issue kind of up in the air
But what's the point of being a king if you can't be kind of a dick about it?
The exact justifications vary from telling to telling, but long story short Minos demands a human sacrifice
Of 14 young Athenians every few years to keep the Minotaur fed
This goes smoothly for the first couple of sacrifices but on the third go round this whole Minotaur human sacrifice situation
Draws the attention of a spunky young hero aiming to prove himself!
Specifically Theseus, Athens' founder hero and official best boy
Which really reflects more poorly on Athens than anything else
Anywho Theseus brings a big cool boat and plenty of gumption but not much in the way of a plan
So it's lucky for him that Minos' daughter Ariadne takes one look at this new cute boy and goes full head over heels for him
Possibly because she doesn't get out much
Now Ariadne is very familiar with the labyrinth, in fact in one early citation of this story mentioned in the Iliad
It suggested the original version of Daedalus' labyrinth was built specifically for Ariadne as a dancing path, with no Minotaur involved
Mythologically Ariadne go way back, maybe even further back than the Minotaur
And some people theorize Ariadne as originally some kind of Cretan goddess known as "The Mistress of the Labyrinth"
Which is dope as all hell, but not what we're here for
Ariadne helps Theseus out by giving him a ball of thread called a clew that'll let him retrace his path out of the labyrinth
And Theseus makes his way down with her guidance, eventually finding the Minotaur and engaging it in Totally Rad Combat
Until he manages to decapitate it, You're welcome Minos!
And so ends the tale of the Minotaur
Surprisingly, well I think it's surprising anyway
Minos doesn't seem to happy to have his monster problem fixed and Theseus and Ariadne book it out Crete along with the other Athenians
But for whatever reason, later ret-conned as divine intervention but originally just kind of a huge dick move
Theseus totally ditches Ariadne and leaves her alone on the shores of Naxos whilst she sleeps
Fortunately when she wakes up her grief and betrayal is mitigated somewhat by the fact that Dionysus himself shows up to help her out
And also maybe propose or something 'cos he thinks she's really cute
And they end up getting married and living very happy immortal lives together up on Olympus
While in contrast Theseus' love life goes... Not well, what with all the kidnapping and personally pissing of hades and such
Yeesh, javelin dodged
Moral of the story? Probably uh...
Keep your promises, be true to your responsibilities and uhh.. Oh yeah!
STOP BONING ANIMALS
Jeez guys
(Red sings "I'm all out of love", by Air Supply)