The Fall of Ixion
Before you can understand why Zeus is blasting Ixion off of Mount Olympus with a thunderbolt to then be bound to an eternally spinning wheel of fire, you need to understand how Ixion came to be on Mount Olympus in the first place. Ixion was a classic A-hole. It all started when Ixion decided to not pay Deioneus for his daughter's hand in marriage, which might seem like a progressive move on Ixion's part, but he was doing it for purely selfish reasons. Deioneus, now Ixion's father-in-law, decided to take the bride price in the form of a few horses stolen from Ixion's stables, and Ixion decided to push his father-in-law into bed of of smoldering coals, burning him alive. Even though he was an a-hole, Ixion couldn't help but go mad from the guilt of slaying his own kin. Zeus, King of the Gods, felt bad for Ixion (maybe because Zeus was something of an a-hole himself) and invited him to hang out on Mount Olympus, home of the gods. Now, as bad as most of...