Review: The King Must Die

I’ve read Mary Renault’s Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy about Alexander the Great some years back, and instantly fell in love with how she blended history with fiction about one of my favorite history subjects. The King Must Die has been on my list since, and the story of Theseus has always been something interesting to me, especially since so many of these Greek hero stories are connected in ways we don’t always realize. I’ll get to that near the end. Theseus is a complex character who often in media comes off as an arrogant hero who looks down on others, and eventually goes through serious trials, from facing the Minotaur on Crete to ruling Athens, barely keeping it all together.

What Mary Renault does so well is immerse you in the time period and culture a bit more accurately than other retellings. She blends the historical myth into the setting without letting it become fantastical. You can see this in how Theseus interacts with Poseidon when he ‘hears’ him, and wonder if anyone else does. The Minotaur Asterion in this book isn’t an actual half-bull, half-human in a maze or labyrinth, but rather is reimagined as a bit more realistic: a monstrous man running Crete from a palace that is depicted as a labyrinth.

A man sorting the world

One of the fascinating things about the story is the depiction of different Greek tribes. Theseus refers to himself as Hellene, but is quick to classify others as ‘Shore People’ or ‘Rhodians’ or ‘Cretans’. He often pities those who aren’t Hellene and takes pride in his specific lineage and tribe.

The earliest example in the book is the depiction of the Shore People who are described as older and matriarchal, and who worship the Earth Mother (assuming this means Gaia). To Theseus, these people are weak and backwards. Meanwhile, he sees the Cretans as forward thinkers with more wealth, art, and engineering than he’s ever witnessed, but they are soft and delicate people. He admires the Rhodians for their naval skills, but looks down on how little they seem to care about honor, only what pays.

Since we are immersed in Theseus’s point of view, Renault is never shy about revealing his inner thoughts, no matter how wrong they may be. Renault never explains his point of view, which shows great trust in the reader to understand through her writing. As the story progresses, Theseus will attempt to ‘Hellenize’ people, tribes, customs and obstacles in his path, like the people of Eleusis, who have their own set of customs, and replace them with what he believes is the right custom.

On the matter of his Hellene faith

Theseus goes through ups and downs in his faith in, and resolve to, Poseidon. He seeks answers to his origin: is Poseidon his father? Why doesn’t he appear to him to guide him? Through his intense devotion to Poseidon, he experiences the physical world as a manifestation of Poseidon’s qualities, powers, and domains. He ‘senses’ earthquakes, ‘hears’ Poseidon in the waves, and puts his life on the line with trust in Poseidon multiple times.

He’s appalled when Ariadne reveals she stages her visions and uses her religious authority as a priestess for her own means by faking prophecies and outmaneuvering others. Theseus even contemplates whether his future children will have ‘the voice’, referring to whether his ‘divine’ ability will pass on as a trait. For Theseus the gods are real, but Ariadne treats them as a tool.

“A King, like a craftsman, wants to breed his skill into his sons.”

Then there’s the Jewish man Theseus encounters from the hills beyond Jericho, who believes in only one God. Theseus is completely dumbfounded by the narrowness of this man’s faith. In his world, the Hellene religion is superior since it has more gods, and he sort of pities the man. Renault carefully shows readers how the world is connected during this age and so different across continents. Around 1250 BC, Theseus and the Greeks believed in a pantheon of gods and more, whereas in another part of the world a new type of religion was forming that believed in one and only God.

The king must die so that the king may live

A major theme in the novel is that the old king must be sacrificed so that a new king can rule. At Eleusis, where kings can only live for one year, he kills the current king in a wrestling bout and takes over. Instead of relinquishing that power when his year ends, Theseus moves on to Athens with stolen kingship to impress his father. Later in Athens, Theseus does offer himself up as a sacrifice to Poseidon when he volunteers as tribute to the Cretans. Yet again, by killing the Minotaur (Asterion), revolting, and escaping Crete, he avoids the sacrificial destiny. Upon his return to Athens, the divine rules demand a royal sacrifice and coerce events, leading Theseus’s father Aigeus to commit suicide. Thus, in a cruel twist of fate, Aigeus becomes a proxy for the sacrifice and fulfills the divine cycle: the old king must die so that a new one may reign, and Theseus inherits the throne.

Mary Renault takes a character like Theseus and creates a complicated man. One who puts honor above all else, has strong faith in his Hellene god, and who internally justifies his actions and thinking from a place of superiority. On the other hand, Theseus comes off as a reliable and honorable person to those he cares about and who are worthy of that honor. Despite being a King and heir to the throne of Athens, he places himself as a sacrifice to Poseidon and heads to Crete to participate in their Bull rituals. This is convincing historical mythological fiction, one that feels grounded and is well written.

I highly recommend this book, and I’m excited to read the follow-up, The Bull from the Sea, which picks up after Theseus returns to Athens. If you’re a fan of Greek mythology and stories, Alexander the Great, and historical fiction, then you will enjoy this.

Some after notes on inter-connected tales of Greek myths

I think many readers don’t quite understand or connect the dots, but most of the Greek myths and stories we know are connected and familial. At some point, Theseus meets the witch Medea in Athens, married to his biological father, and Medea tries to poison him. Medea was previously married to Jason, who led the Argonauts on a quest to get the Golden Fleece. This generation of stories is one behind the generation that most people are familiar with in the Trojan War. Theseus’s sons participated in the Trojan War, mainly to rescue their grandmother, who was captured as revenge for Theseus having kidnapped Helen earlier. That was long before Paris’s kidnapping that led to the war.