64 pages • 2-hour read
Electric Idol
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Symbols & Motifs
Photographs and Mirrors
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content.
Robert’s Olympus is a pantheon maintained through images. As an influencer, Psyche uses this aspect of Olympian society to her advantage, taking photographs of herself to maintain brand sponsorships and promote size-inclusive fashion. Significantly, Psyche and Eros first confront one another in front of a mirror in a Dodona Tower bathroom, and she fights her attraction to him even as she bandages his injuries. In this moment, the mirror gives her a chance to see that he is drawn to her in his own way, even though they remain relative strangers.
In yet another emphasis on the impact of images and reflections, the novel’s core conflict begins when the two are photographed together by a paparazzo, caught in a moment that looks like proof of a secret relationship. In an ironic reversal of this idea, their first posed kiss soon betrays real passion, telegraphing the fact that their marriage of convenience has genuine romantic potential. After their wedding, they ensure that they are deliberately photographed together on a romantic walk, and Eros realizes that “there’s no artifice” in his “eager” response to her physical presence. Though the art of image manipulation is part of their survival strategy, the growing comfort that Eros and Psyche feel in these moments also shows the progression of their romance, adding to Robert’s broader focus on The Tension Between Public Image and Private Identity.
Their entanglement grows deeper as Psyche’s relationship to the mirrors in Eros’s apartment changes. She realizes that his mother’s influence, not his personal vanity, is behind the décor choice. He smiles at her when she offers to add some of her own decorative interventions, betraying his growing desire for their marriage to be a lasting partnership. Later, they have passionate sex in front of the mirrors, and Psyche sees the entire scene as a “show performed and witnessed by only [them]” (298). In this context, mirrors no longer create distance or false impressions; instead, they show real passion and authentic confessions. In the novel’s Epilogue, Eros is stunned to see a photograph of their wedding next to one of Hades and Persephone, and he can tell that his “heart’s in [his] eyes” (368). By the novel’s end, there is no gap between image and authentic emotion, demonstrating the durability of Eros and Psyche’s happily-ever-after conclusion.
Food and Meals
Robert consistently uses food and meals as sources of insight into Eros’s motives and character. For example, when Psyche first meets Eros at a bar, assuming that they are having a strategy meeting, Eros reveals that he is there to kill her; Psyche realizes that the drink on the table is likely lethal, so she takes Eros’s instead. Her dislike of the vodka mirrors the tension and sense of distaste that exists between them. Later, when she arrives at his penthouse under much kinder circumstances, Psyche inspects the refrigerator and surprises Eros by assuming that he has a personal chef, declaring, “Someone as high maintenance as you doesn’t cook for yourself” (79). However, Eros corrects her, and as time goes on, he routinely makes her meals, insisting, “[Y]ou need the calories to keep your energy up” (101). The appearance of food thus betrays the early distance between them, and its reappearance during increasingly intimate scenes also marks the progression of their emotional connection.
After their marriage, they share a companionable dinner together, and Eros recounts some of his history of carrying out Aphrodite’s morally compromising missions. Psyche responds by confessing to her own role in driving a wedge between Ares and the prior Zeus, and this scene shows that both of them are ensnared in the Olympian power structure. The fact that the conversation is carried out over a casual dinner reveals that they are both growing more comfortable with confiding in one another as a matter of course. In the novel’s Epilogue, Eros and Psyche attend a family dinner at Demeter’s apartment, and this event marks Eros’s official entrance into the family. The easy family meal and Eros’s enjoyment of it establish that the tension of Balancing Family Loyalty and Romantic Partnership has reached a logical resolution.
Personal Sanctuaries as Emotional Refuge
Both Eros and Psyche use personal retreats within Olympus to gain a form of respite from the challenges of their politicized lives. For example, Psyche takes Eros on a winter walk in the university gardens, explaining that she is fond of this setting even out of season because the gardens remind her that “there are seasons to everything” (229). Eros recognizes that she is hinting at her overall life philosophy and her reasons for persevering in all circumstances. As they walk, he asks her about her ambitions, telling her that he admires her intelligence and comparing her political savvy to her mother’s.
In turn, Eros takes her to his favorite bar, explaining that he loves being near the actors and performers of Olympus’s theater district. Psyche is touched by his trust in her, and she also becomes concerned by the idea that if the paparazzi were to begin frequenting this place, he would lose his hard-won place of refuge entirely. Psyche’s later choice to meet Aphrodite in the same university gardens that she showed to Eros foreshadows that the coming confrontation is one of her own devising and is undertaken from a position of strength, not one of self-doubt. Similarly, Eros’s relationship to his apartment also transforms by the end of the novel, as he admires Psyche’s additions to the décor and sees “evidence of […] happiness everywhere [he] look[s]” (365). Thus, Eros’s apartment transforms from a simple residence into another one of his sanctuaries, and this shift indicates that Psyche’s presence has deeply transformed his life for the better.
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