Every myth has two kinds of characters: the ones we’re meant to love, and the ones who exist only to make the hero look good. I spent the last few months writing an academic paper about the second kind — and it just got published, so I wanted to talk about it here in plain language, without the footnotes.
The paper looks at two women from two very different traditions: Circe, the witch from Greek mythology who turns Odysseus’s men into pigs, and Surpanakha, the demoness from the Ramayana whose nose Lakshman cuts off for daring to desire Rama. For thousands of years, both of them existed only as obstacles — the monster the hero has to get past on his way to somewhere more important.
Then two novelists decided to hand them the pen. Madeline Miller gave Circe a whole novel of her own. Kavita Kane did the same for Surpanakha in Lanka’s Princess. Both books ask the same question: what if we heard this story from the “other” side?
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