“Next time you’re going to defy the gods, do it for a better reason. I’d hate to see my sister turned to cinders for nothing.”

In Chapter 3, Aeëtes gives Circe this advice after she reveals that she spoke to Prometheus and brought him nectar. In this moment, two key things are are made clear. First, Circe gets her first glimpse of her brother’s true nature and realizes with horror that he is as power-hungry as every other man in her divine family. It is a stark realization that there is no true loyalty or love in her family and that any disobedience could result in as brutal a punishment as the one Prometheus suffered. Second, the scene demonstrates that the gods in Helios’s court are incredibly petty. If Circe were to make Helios look like a fool in front of the Olympians, he would surely make her suffer. The scene in turn functions as a bit of foreshadowing as Circe will indeed defy the gods by using witchcraft, and Circe will need to grapple with whether or not the act was worth it. 

“What could make a god afraid? I knew that answer too. A power greater than their own.”

At the end of Chapter 4, Circe explores the potential of pharmaka and learns that the gods fear things they don’t understand, especially things more powerful than them. Circe’s quest for that power in this scene leads to Glaucos and Scylla’s eventual transformations. These acts of witchcraft demonstrate how power can corrupt not just its targets but also the person wielding it. Good! Circe actively seeks out this power which her grandmother specifically forbade, and this scene functions as the beginning of her corruption. In this world, witchcraft is a perverted power which the gods don’t possess; it’s not innate to divine blood, and therefore it must be forbidden. For Circe to find her power rooted in this forbidden world, she is essentially marking herself as both someone to fear and to cast out. The fact that Circe will spend the rest of her life regretting how she used her power demonstrates that she is capable of learning to respect her power as consequential, something her divine family never accepts as they wield their powers haphazardly for their own gain. 

“Let me tell you a truth about Helios and all the rest. They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power. […] They take what they want, and in return they give you only your own shackles.”

When Circe has her first real conversation with Pasiphaë in Crete in Chapter 11, her sister speaks about their father’s court and the greed for power among the immortals. There is no way to earn love or respect, Pasiphaë tells Circe—the only currency worth anything is power. She tells Circe how it was necessary for her to do terrible things to maintain her place with their brother Perses and retain a scrap of power for herself, even though she knew it could all be taken away on a whim. The thing that cuts Circe the deepest in this scene is when her sister tells her that the two of them are indeed alike. This horrifies Circe, but she later does exert her will over others to feel that she has power over her own fate. She ultimately learns, however, that a greed for power drains her of the humanity she values most in herself.