Percy Jackson’s The Odyssey Reference Explained: Why The Lotus Flowers Damage Memory (2024)

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Percy Jackson’s The Odyssey Reference Explained: Why The Lotus Flowers Damage Memory? ›

The reason the lotus flowers have such a powerful effect on the characters in The Odyssey is because they have a narcotic nature, causing an inflated sense of joy and eliminating a person's negative feelings. This leads them to forget what matters most: their goals and purpose, their loved ones, and their homes.

Odysseus' men eat the flowering plant and are immediately changed. Anyone who eats this sweet plant becomes forgetful of their purpose. They forget about their home and all their cares in the world. The men never send back a message to Odysseus; they stay and eat the plant with the natives.

Percy Jackson (Film Series)

In the movie, waitresses hand out lotus flowers to the guests so that they forget who they are and end up staying in the Lotus Hotel for all eternity. After a mental push from his father, Percy stops eating the flowers and snaps Annabeth and Grover out of their trances.

I have a memory of the Lotus Eaters causing Odysseus' men to become sleepy and lethargic, but in the text of The Odyssey, they only make the men forgetful of their home and the necessity of returning. In antiquity, the lotus flower was associated with forgetfulness, and this is the Lotus Eaters' greatest vice.

Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, and Grover Underwood eat the lotus flower. It must be eaten every once in a while to renew the spell. When the trio of heroes first eat the flower, it makes them act like they're intoxicated. It is said by the trio that it is the most delicious thing they had ever eaten.

The lotus fruits and flowers were the primary food of the island and were a narcotic, causing the inhabitants to sleep in peaceful apathy. After they ate the lotus, they would forget their home and loved ones and long only to stay with their fellow lotus-eaters. Those who ate the plant never cared to report or return.

The flower, seed, leaf, and underground stem are used as medicine. Lotus contains chemicals that seem to breakdown fat tissue. These effects might help with weight loss. It also contains flavonoids, such as quercetin, which have anti-inflammatory effects.

Lotus flower meaning across cultures

Because lotuses rise from the mud without stains, they are often viewed as a symbol of purity. Since they return to the murky water each evening and open their blooms at the break of day, lotus flowers are also symbols of strength, resilience, and rebirth.

The inhabitants are not hostile; however, eating the lotus plant causes Odysseus' men to lose memory and all desire to return home. Odysseus barely gets them back to sea.

The lotus arose from the waters on a single mound of dry land. And then, the flower bloomed. When the petals of the lotus flower opened, they opened to reveal the Sun god, Atum, as a child. Other versions of the myth call the sun-god Ra; the two gods identities are merged, as is that of Ra and Amun.

Who told Percy not to eat the flower? ›

Percy snaps out of the spell after hearing the voice of Poseidon through telepathy telling him not to eat any more flowers. Percy frees Grover and Annabeth from the flowers' effects; they locate the final pearl in the casino and escape.

The three men discover the hospitable Lotus-Eaters and taste their “flowering food”; thereafter they long only to remain among the Lotus-Eaters and “forget the way home.”

The danger that the Lotus-Eaters pose to Odysseus' men in the excerpt from the Odyssey, Part 1 is that they offer the men the Lotus plant, causing them to lose interest in returning home. The Lotus plant has a narcotic effect, making those who consume it forget their purpose and desire only to stay and consume more.

Some of the sailors try the Lotos, and it has a strange effect on them. It makes them incredibly sleepy and lazy. They basically just plop down on the beach and refuse to move, insisting that they are tired of working all the time and want to stay in this new spot and just chill.

History of the lotus flower

Back in Egyptians times, the lotus flower was very important in their religion. Meaning creation and rebirth, it was a symbol of the sun, because at nightfall it closes and goes beneath the water and at dawn it climbs up above the water and reopens.

These three men eat the Lotus and lose "their hope of home," which means they forget about their entire goal: to go back to Ithaca. Odysseus warns the rest of his men not to eat the Lotus and ties up the three men in an attempt to bring them home anyway.

He even had to tie them up so that they did not escape. He doesn't want to eat the lotus fruit because he wants to go home, and he doesn't want to forget this purpose.