Therefore he changed the story. Eurpides' Helen was in Egypt the whole time, and had nothing to do with starting the war which killed so many Greeks and Trojans. The key point is that each new version must continue to invoke something in its audience. If the new story fails to do this, if it loses its relevance to its culture, it is meaningless and can no longer be called myth. The Olympians One of the distinguishing features of myth is the close interaction between gods and mortals.
Gods speak with their mortal favorites as well as intervene on their behalf.
They could also do severe harm to their enemies. Odysseus, for example, angered the sea god Poseidon when he blinded Poseidon's son, the cyclops Polyphemus. Poseidon killed all of Odysseus' followers and prevented the hero himself from reaching home for ten years. The Greeks assembled their most important gods into a pantheon of twelve. Not all lists have the same twelve gods, but the list below is fairly standard.