Charles M. Schulz’s Mount Olympus
Let’s start off with Charlie Brown. He is a very determined person: always trying to get his baseball team to win, always trying to kick a football that gets torn away by Lucy, always trying to help out a friend in need. However, he tends to fail in these endeavors, no matter how much resilience he demonstrates. Thus, if you dig deeper into his character, you can see his deep insecurities that have plagued him for a long time. In “Charlie Brown’s Christmas”, he says that he destroys everything he touches after hurting his small Christmas tree. This is just one example of many that show how deeply affected he has been by the bullying of his peers. The Olympian god that I believe matches this is Ares, the god of war. He always has a need to prove himself; he picks a fight with Athena, the goddess of strategy in war, to try to show that he is better than her. He, as things go when you try to fight Athena, fails, which deepens his insecurity and need to be better. In this way, he and Charlie Brown are alike, both yearning for a success that will never come.
Second of all, Lucy van Pelt. She is a bossy, independent character who often calls Charlie Brown a blockhead for no reason and bullies other characters. She definitely has a strong personality, much like Zeus, king of the gods. Zeus is 99% of the time angry at someone, whether it be his wife, Hera, for meddling in his business of helping Achilles win back the favor of the Greeks in Book I of the Iliad or humanity, who he threatened to wipe out entirely, or even his brother, Poseidon. These are all actions that I can imagine Lucy taking, especially getting angry at her brother.
Don’t be fooled by Linus’ appearance: although he is young and carries around a comfort blanket, he is the deep thinker of the group and often has philosophical ponderings. He also is the younger brother of none other than Lucy van Pelt. She often torments him and uses her seniority as a power over him. Thus, Linus is alike Poseidon - the king of the sea, often having to use his mind to work out problems below the water. Plus, he is the brother of Zeus,
whom we have already established as Lucy’s twin god. Although Poseidon is younger, Zeus uses his role as king of the gods over him in decision-making.
Peppermint Patty is the tomboy of the bunch. She plays every sport imaginable and loves the outdoors, much like Artemis. Artemis is the goddess of the forest and the hunt and spends her time in the woods or shooting animals with her bow and arrows. The two are also both largely uninterested in scholarly work. If you gave Peppermint Patty a bow and arrow, she would waste no time getting to work learning how to shoot a target. And if you set her wild in the woods, it is likely that she would never come back out.
Marcie, Peppermint Patty’s nerdy best friend, is similar to Athena. Athena is an awesome goddess: the master of strategy, arts, and wisdom. She’s one of the most, if not the most, scholarly of all of the Olympians. Marcie knows the answer to every question asked in school by their faceless teacher, and often helps out Patty when she dozes off. Now, although Athena would probably not help Artemis as much as Marcie does with Patty, she knows just about every single question asked of her, whether it be in strategy, logic, or school.
Sally Brown is Demeter. Hands down. They both are very motherly: Sally with Snoopy, and Demeter with Persephone. Sally would definitely go to slightly psychotic ends to get Snoopy back if he were stolen, just as Demeter did for Persephone.
The last goddess standing is Aphrodite, the goddess of love. She is known for her immense beauty and thus, her vanity, much like Frieda. Frieda brings up her “naturally curly red hair” in every. Single. Conversation. No matter the topic, no matter the person, no matter the time: Frieda knows how to weasel that little detail into a chat, which tends to infuriate her peers. Likewise, Aphrodite has a tendency of either cursing or killing those that try to boast that their beauty surpasses hers.
The two musically inclined of these two selections are Schroeder, a blonde pianist obsessed with Beethoven, and Apollo, the god of music (amongst many other things). They’re both a little moody, a little too calm and undeterred by anything, and both unlucky when it comes to love. Apollo was madly in love with the nymph Daphne, who did not reciprocate his feelings, while Schroeder had Lucy madly in love with him, which was just annoying.
Okay, now this one might be a bit of a hot take: Franklin is the exact replica of Dionysus. They are so opposite that they are the same. Franklin is smarter and more popular than the rest of the gang, while Dionysus is pretty loopy compared to the other gods, being the god of wine and partying and all. The one trait that makes them so similar, you ask? Their feeling of superiority. Franklin is often remarking on how everyone is so weird, and Dionysus pretty much does the same. This one fatal flaw is where their personalities overlap, and how they are the same character over again.
Hephaestus is very smart, yet everyone else belittles and makes fun of him because of his appearance, much like Pig-Pen. Pig-Pen is always surrounded by a cloud of dust, and
although he makes good points, no one can hear him over the overwhelming stench. No one really listens to Hephaestus because all that they pay attention to is his deformities after getting thrown from Mount Olympus as a child.
Woodstock is Hermes, and Hermes is Woodstock, and you cannot tell me otherwise. Other than the fact that they have the exact same vibe, Woodstock sends messages for Snoopy, and Hermes is the messenger of the gods.
Last but not least, Snoopy. There’s no one quite like Snoopy. He is a flying ace, a chef, a friend, an actor, a magician, a pilgrim on the Mayflower; he’s done it all. So, you may ask, who is he? Truthfully, he is incomparable, but so is Hera, the queen of the gods herself. She shapeshifts herself and others all of the time to catch Zeus in his affairs. And she and Snoopy both are very, very headstrong and stubborn - which is not necessarily a bad quality. They are also both loyal to a fault. Hera never once cheats on her husband, and Snoopy is 100% Charlie Brown’s dog.
