The Name He Gave Them

He does not fight back. What he does, in the Theogony, is name them. He calls his sons Titans — Strainers, the ones who strained and did a terrible thing — and says that vengeance will come for it afterwards. In this scene that is his whole retaliation: a name and a prediction, and both land. Later in the poem he and Gaia go further, warning Kronos that a son will overthrow him and helping Rhea hide the infant Zeus. The name sticks so hard that it is still what we call them, and the prediction comes true when Kronos is overthrown by his own youngest son exactly as he overthrew his father. Ouranos loses everything and is still, a generation later, the one who was right.