Icarus, a la Shmoop.
Touched by the sun...
...but not in a good way.
Parents do a lot of talking.
They ramble on about homework...
...chores...
...and places you need to be.
With all that chatter...
...it's not surprising that a few things
fall through the cracks.
Maybe that's what happened to Icarus.
He and his dad, Daedalus, were
escaping from jail...
...with the help of a couple of pairs of wings...
...that Daedalus had made out of wax and feathers.
That's when Icarus ran into a little problem.
Despite his father's repeated warnings to
 steer clear of the sun...
...Icarus ignored them.
And we think you can guess how that turned out.
So why didn't Icarus heed all those warnings?
Maybe it was because the 
advice came from his dad.
Earth-bound kids have a habit of
ignoring their parents...
...maybe the offspring of the gods weren't
much different.
If the info had come from anyone else...
...Icarus might still be floating
 around there somewhere.
Maybe his listening skills weren't the problem.
Maybe he just got a little too full of himself.
Once he was flying, he may have lost sight
of his limitations...
...or forgot that he even had any.
It wouldn't be the first time that a kid got
a little too cocky.
But maybe it was none of the above.
Icarus might have wanted to impress his dad...
...by showing him that his wings were 
stronger than he thought...
...because as much as parents drive 
their kids crazy...
...it doesn't stop kids from 
wanting their parents to be proud of them.
So was Icarus a hard-headed Angel Boy
 who refused to listen to his father...
...or an independent free-thinker who 
got a little too cocky...
...or just a kid trying to make his father proud?
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
