Many parts of the myth suggest, through its fundamental darkness, the tragic nature of Medusa. Even though the gift given to Medusa was Athena's gift to Asclepius of two drops of Gorgon's blood. One drop has the power to heal and even resurrect, while the other is poison. But it is up to literature and the arts to reveal the close relationship between the opposites and the “innocence” of the victim. In this regard, the myth of Medusa is revealing. In his study The Mirror of Medusa (1983), Tobin Siebers identified the importance of two elements, namely the rivalry between Athena and the Gorgon, and the motif of the mirror. According to Ovid (Metamorphoses, IV. 779 et seq.), the reason for the dispute concerned the rape of Medusa by Poseidon inside the temple of the virgin goddess. Say no to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay The goddess is believed to have punished Medusa by transforming her face, thus making Medusa an innocent victim for the second time. However, another tradition, used by Mallarmé in Les Dieux antiques (1880), emphasized a more personal rivalry: Medusa boasted of being more beautiful than Athena. Everything indicates that the goddess considered it necessary to distance herself from her negative double in order to assert her “own” identity. The common characteristics are numerous. For example, snakes are the attribute of Athena, as illustrated by the famous statue of Phidias and indicated by certain Orphic poems which refer to her under the name of "the Serpentine". Furthermore, the hypnotic gaze is one of the traits of the “blue-eyed” goddess. -green eyes', whose bird is the owl, represented with a fixed gaze. Finally, because she placed Medusa's head on her shield, in battle or in anger, she takes on the terrifying appearance of the monster. Thus, in the Aeneid (11, 171), she expresses her anger by making flames burst from her eyes. These observations aim to show that Athena and Medusa are two inseparable aspects of the same sacred power. A similar claim could be made about Perseus, who retains traces of his association with his monstrous double, Medusa. Using his decapitated head to turn his enemies into stone, he sows death around him. And when he flies over Africa with his trophy in a bag, through a sort of negligence, drops of blood fall to the earth and transform into venomous snakes which reduce the deadly power of Medusa (Ovide, op. cit., IV. 618).Two of the famous paintings illustrate this close bond between the hero and the monster. Cellini's Perseus resembles the head he holds in his hand (as Siebers demonstrates) and Paul Klee's Spirit Fought Evil (1904) depicts a complete role reversal - Perseus is painted full face with a terrible face, while Medusa turns aside. In this doubles game, the theme of reflection is fundamental. He explains the process of victimization to which Medusa was subjected and which relates to the superstition of the “evil eye”. The way to respond to the “evil eye” is to either use a third eye – the one Perseus cast on the Graiae – or to deflect the evil spell by using a mirror. Ovid, in particular, emphasized the importance of the shield in which Perseus was able to see the Gorgon without being turned to stone, and which was given to him by Athena. Everything indicates that the mirror was the real weapon. It was interpreted like this by Calderón and Prevelakis, but also by Roger Caillois in Méduse et Cie (1960). It is up to Ovid to establish the link with Narcissus, the myth he made famous. It seems that the same process of victimization is at work here. The individual is considered a victim.