After reading the story about Oannes, I found him to have good moral and extremely helpful to the human population at Babylon. It sounded like he actually brought peace to the city since the book described Babylon as, “a great resort of people of various nations an lived without rule and order, like the beasts in the field.” Teaching these “beasts” about letters, science, construction, and how to gather food sounds like he helped civilize the population. The book also says he didn’t accept food and went back to his home (ocean) at nightfall, meaning he didn’t want anything in return for his teachings, signaling he did it out of the kindness of his heart.

The comparison between Oannes and the mermaid described in “Merpeople” is very different. Where Oannes seemed like a peace bringing and insightful figure, the mermaids are depicted as evil, deceiving, and sinful. I was not surprised because I remembered reading how misogynistic times were long ago and how mermaids were another tool used to degrade the image of feminism. One thing I found interesting was that although I was aware the Christian Church spent many years degrading a woman’s image that even Greek mythology followed the same practice, this can be seen with the Greek figure Scylla who was a female sea monster.