One of the themes of the play is ignorance, and the desire to be ignorant. I mean, in the original plays, a lot of hints are dropped and the main character is given the choice countless times to learn who was the king and learn that he murdered him. But he skips over those. So, the play is more about misfortune (both destined and self-inflected) then a unhealthy obsession with one's mother. In fact, Oedipus looses ALL interest in his mother sexually as soon as he learns that she is his mother. The play is about destiny and ignorance. Freud (and the public) are the ones that made this into a family sexual deviance show. Which I guess it's why this would be the worse/best musical ever. A lot of people would miss the point.

Here ends the literature major segment of this comment.

Most heroes kinda went the extra mile to punish people, this includes Ulysses, who chose to kill people rather then just let them go, avoid wars or slip away quietly. It got him loads of trouble. I always found that, for being the wisest man in Greece, he was pretty darn bloodthirsty.