oddyseye

[oddyseye]

In your opinion, what was Hamilton's worst flaw? Or just... thing that he did in general?

Hamilton’s worst flaw was his obsession with legacy and validation at literally every cost. That’s the thing. The guy wasn’t just ambitious in the “I want power” way, he needed to be seen. Needed to be remembered. Needed everyone to know he was smart, indispensable, brilliant and, most importantly of all, right.

That drove him to do insane things, to burn bridges, to obsess over things that, honestly, weren’t his business to obsess over. He couldn’t just let people disagree, couldn’t just let policies live and die on their own merit. He couldn’t let insults fly, couldn’t let events unfold naturally. If history wasn’t bending toward his narrative, he would bend it himself, no matter the cost to himself or others. He had to be the author of history as he saw it, which is brilliant sometimes, yes, but also terrifyingly controlling.

Usually, when this question is asked, the people’s immediate reactions are “oh, the Reynolds Pamphlet!!” and, by that, they mean cheating. To me, that’s not Hamilton’s worst flaw. Honestly, it’s such a reductive, surface-level take and I swear people love it because it’s easy to blame a scandal that’s, like, literally about sex rather than the deeper, messier stuff. The Reynolds thing is embarrassing, sure. Morally messy, yes. But in terms of the kind of flaw that defines a life, that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Hamilton had bigger, scarier weaknesses than a moment of human stupidity in a moment of emotional or sexual failure.

Now, if we are talking about the worst action...

Hands down: his role in manipulating the Jay Treaty and pressuring Washington into policies that centralized federal power while undermining certain democratic checks.

People always talk about him as the brilliant architect of the financial system, the indispensable founding genius—but the way he did it?

Hamilton often prioritized his vision of what should happen over what the public, or even his allies, wanted (hello, he and Adams were on the same damn side). He deliberately pushed agendas that created friction, resentment, and political instability because he firmly believed that the ends—strong, centralized government, permanent national debt, a lasting legacy—justified the means. He was willing to play with people’s lives, reputations, and trust to shape the country like clay in his hands. That’s an action, not just a character flaw. That’s deliberate, calculated, real-world impact that hurt others while feeding his obsession with permanence and correctness. And this isn’t abstract “he wanted things his way.” He actively used secrecy, persuasion, and sometimes deception to bend the system. He coerced allies, he maneuvered opponents into corners, he pushed policies with moral and political consequences that weren’t just theoretical. People got hurt.

The Reynolds thing? Tiny in comparison. The duel? Dramatic, yes, tragic, yes, but not the same level of “I knowingly engineered systemic consequences to cement my vision and legacy.” That is, honestly, terrifying. That is what makes him both brilliant and dangerously flawed.

So yes, worst action? The manipulation and push for policies that centralized power through moral, political, and sometimes manipulative means, including his maneuvering in financial, diplomatic, and legislative arenas, all designed to cement his vision of America and his personal legacy. And worst flaw? Obsession with validation, obsession with legacy, pride that overrode humility or patience.

[oddyseye]

sorry for the sudden tadc posting and not to sound like a Ragatha glazer (<— lying liar who is one) but it’s so funny how everyone wants her

Pomni still wants to be her friend and actively tries in ep 6 to be on her team despite their “fight” in ep 5 (it honestly wasn’t even that)

Jax is still obsessed with her despite whatever relationship they had being broken up

Gangle drew anime fanart of her and Ragatha together and Jax mentioned some “figurine thing” involving Ragatha that was apparently extremely embarrassing which seems like Gangle was maybe kissing some figurine of Ragatha like a body pillow or something

“I don’t want people to hate me” girl I don’t think that’s a problem for u at the moment /lh

[oddyseye]

Okay so now that I’ve learn about Agamemnon and Cassandra’s relationship being more bittersweet than just horrible (as some recent “feminists” retellings make it seem) I’d love to read more about them. Idk if you’ve already made a post about it and I haven’t found it yet but I’m very intrigued (I love complicated relationships)

Oh I am not sure if I have made more posts about them than those you have already discovered but I can make a small catalog on some sources that speak on their complicated bond and in one ironic twist of fate, their destiny intertwining with each other.

So I shall list below some of the mentions I remember in regards to their relationship and the really complicated and bittersweet mentions

We know as early as the Odyssey how much Agamemnon was fond of Cassandra and not just in a sexual or purely carnal way. We know she meant a lot to him because Agamemnon tells to Odysseus that the most pitiful thing he heard (οἰκτροτάτην δ᾽ ἤκουσα ὄπα) was Cassandra's cry as she was being slaughtered by his side (ἀμφ᾽ ἐμοί) which has its own symbolism (at least in the Odyssey he had Cassandra sit by his side at the triumphant table). Agamemnon mentions his distress upon noticing the slaughter going on around him but he notably speaks on Cassandra only who had come to mean much to him. On top of that, the cry as she was being slaughtered by Clytemnestra gave him the force to attack and try to grab Clytemnestra and stop her even if he was dying himself.

Aeschylus's play "Agamemnon" is a place where we see Cassandra's view here. And not only Agamemnon's (who already mentioned that Cassandra needs to be treated with kindness and even spoke on how no one chooses to become a slave). He speaks very tenderly on her so he obviously cares deeply, at least as far as Aeschylus is concerned. Cassandra amidst her mourning and mumbling to Apollo how he destroyed her, she mourns her own fate but also mourns for Agamemnon. She calls him "noble lion" as opposed to the more diminishing "wolf" that she uses for Aegisthus. And says that "the lioness lies with the wolf at the pride lion's absence (λέοντος εὐγενοῦς ἀπουσίᾳ) She notes how their fates are intertwined . Sure she could be simply mourning for herself and how her fate is attached to Agamemnon but the way she speaks positively on him or using mostly positive mentions is certainly something that needs to be noted.

Euripides despite the fact that he tears the Greeks apart in his play "Trojan Women" he makes Talthybius mention to Hecuba how Agamemnon was truly and utterly in love with Cassandra speaking how "eros had striken him with his arrow" (ἔρως ἐτόξευσ᾽ αὐτὸν). Of course there the feelings of the Trojan women to their fate is different and that is of course to be expected given that their pain is fresh and how Euripides passes his brutal message and criticism to Athens but it is important to show that Agamemnon's initial intentions were out of love rather than pure lust and it seems that Talthybius mentions very specifically how Agamemnon had fallen for Cassandra as opposed to the dryer mention of others before or after him. It is also mentioned that the union would be some sort of "marriage" or "wedding" showing a different light to the emotions that Agamemnon held for Cassandra. Of course as I said initially Cassandra's reaction is almost madness. She calls out for torches to be lifted and set the show ablaze. I find it a very disturbing scene for the poor girl to be honest. Given also how she was raped a little while ago makes it logical that she is almost half-mad at the idea of being "married" to one of the Greek kings that belong to the bunch that did this to her. She doesn't know who Agamemnon is in that case. She knows only she was already traumatized in way more ways than one so the last thing she needed was to be given to one of the Greeks. I find the reaction to be both brutal and heartbreaking as well as her half-mad reaction. That reaction seems also to be an extra dime to Euripides as to why people do not believe her when she starts prophesying things hither thither.

Again on Euripides this time "Hecuba" we hear the Chorus (important how the chorus is captive trojan women) say that Agamemnon has been resisting the sacrifice of Polyxena out of his love or his desire for marriage (λέκτρον) for Cassandra and out of a similar desire and drive he seems to assist Hecuba to her revenge. In fact Agamemnon is compassionate on Hecuba who also brings Cassandra to the conversation. His interest and his understanding comes from both lover's and paternal interest since he seems to be finding common ground with Hecuba as a parent as he himself understands the concept way too much out of his own terrible experience. When Polymestor at the end of the play prophesies that Cassandra and Agamemnon shall die at Mycenae Agamemnon gets furious and orders for the man to be dragged away.

Ovid mentions in his work "Amores" (significant how it is mentioned to a work dedicated to love stories by the way) how Agamemnon saw Cassandra in the worst state possible (hair disheveled, clothes ruined and her disoriented) he fell in love with her and the love is spoken in the text as not mere lust since the example is given after the mention of Hector taking up the arms to protect Andromache.

However the most touching mention is given at a later source Philostratus the Elder or Philostratus the Lemnian. In his work "Imagines" he mentions an image that seems to be inspired by Homer where we see Cassandra throwing herself over Agamemnon to protect him from Clytemnestra who has an axe wielded over her head ready to strike. In fact Philostratus says that she RUSHES to throw herself over Agamemnon (ὥρμηκε τῷ Ἀγαμέμνονι ῥιπτοῦσα) and she even removes her godly symbols or the symbols of her protection of the god she served (στέμματα) and she wraps them around Agamemnon (οἷον περιβάλλουσα τῇ τέχνῃ αὐτόν) almost seemingly wishing to protect him with her body AND the gods she serves

So although we know that Cassandra is definitely a sad existence and has no choice of where her fate leads her and for sure one can say that her emotions are pure acceptance and nothing more, I cannot help to imagine that all the poets and ancient writers created so many parallels and mentions for a reason Somehow when I combine it to the frantic appearance of Cassandra's at "Trojan Women" to the compassion we have to other sources till Philostratus's mention of a clear case of Cassandra trying to protect Agamemnon WITH HER OWN BODY (so obviously her personal safety was not in her mind) could mean what if WHAT IF Agamemnon is not this evil monster who just uses women to his pleasure only? What if his emotions soothed a bit Cassandra to this terrible moment (and the bar was INSANELY LOW already given the circumstances) making Cassandra at least believe that Agamemnon was not the worst that could happen to her

Also Cassandra knew her fate eventually. Maybe she thought saving Agamemnon would be saving herself but then again I cannot help but imagine the deep emotions going on here of various of types and different nature. Did she resent him? As her conqueror and new master, sure. Did she get mistreated by him? No according to the majority of the sources (daresay I find no mention to my knowledge where Cassandra gets mistreated. In fact we see that Agamemnon loved her) What if he soothed her? What if somehow her already disturbed heart from all that torment tried to find some shelter to Agamemnon at her final moments? One can call it "Stockholm syndrome" again but honestly I cannot help but finding it so fascinating to think!

[oddyseye]

Who's gonna tell him his funny mask makes him look cheerful or grumpy depending on his "humor" when he's, in reality, sad and crazy, and trying to figure himself out.

"The funny one?"

"Yeah! Ragatha's the cheerful one"

"Gangle's the sad one"

"Kinger's the crazy one"

"Zooble's the grumpy one"

"And you are the one who hasn't figured that out yet."

"We all just became archetypes. I at least have the self awareness to choose who I am."

"...the funny one..."

[oddyseye]

While I've never seen L'Oddisea, I don't imagine it's hard to be better than whatever Epic was, respectfully.

finally watching L’Oddisea (1968) and 40 minutes in its already a better adaptation than most of Epic

[oddyseye]

Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is literally a history nerd’s wet dream, because it’s not like it’s fiction. Chernow went through archives, letters, financial records, newspapers, the whole shebang. The facts he reports are generally solid. Dates, events, battles, correspondence, etc., are all grounded in reality.

That being said...Chernow does put his own spin on things.

He’s constantly speculating about motivations, personality, emotions. Sometimes it’s subtle (“I think Hamilton felt this way”) and sometimes it’s more blatant. He paints Hamilton in a very particular light—ambitious, brilliant, sometimes ruthless—but he’s choosing how to frame those traits. That means it’s biased, not flat-out wrong. There’s also the romanticizing of certain events. For example, Chernow really hypes up Hamilton’s rise from nothing, which is true, but the way he narrates it makes it feel almost mythic. Not that mythic = false, but it’s definitely cherry-picked a bit for narrative flair.

Then there’s stuff he leaves out or glosses over, like some of Hamilton’s more morally gray choices or the full context of his political enemies. Burr, Jefferson, and Madison are all there, but we’re seeing them through Chernow’s filter, which means some drama might be exaggerated or underexplored.

In short, it’s not “don’t read it.” It’s a classic biography for a reason, and it’s very accurate, if only poorly written. Just keep in mind, if you want pure facts with zero interpretation, you’re going to have to cross-reference letters and congressional records yourself.

“Less biased” in Hamilton Land is...tricky. Because anyone writing a full biography is gonna have some lens, but some are way closer to just the receipts. Chernow leans very Hamilton-positive, romanticizes, speculates a ton. So if you want something chill, factual, less narrative-glow:

“Alexander Hamilton: A Biography” by Willard Sterne Randall is shorter, tighter, more “here are the facts, letters, events,” less storytelling flair. Still readable, doesn’t try to make him mythic.

“Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years” by Joseph J. Ellis focuses on early life, less Hamilton-worship energy, more historical context. Ellis writes clearly and critically, he’s careful with claims.

Basically, any biography that isn’t Chernow is probably going to feel a little...neutral, maybe even dry. Chernow’s just entertaining and long, which is why everyone remembers it.

guys how inaccurate exactly is Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow??

‘cause I just finished the book and now I’m seeing posts that it’s apparently super inaccurate and

bro I’m not reading another book about Alexander hamilton this one was like 729 pages 🫩🫩🫩🔫🔫🔫

is it THAT inaccurate??? 😖😖

[oddyseye]

What will happen if ONE MORE Burr stan calls him a feminist as if he's not a pedophile and a rapist

"Burr was a feminist-" MARY EMMONS AND MARGARET MONCRIEFFE WOULD BEG TO FUCKING DIFFER.

[oddyseye]

Honestly, what was the relationship between Hamilton and his brother even like?

Okay so, this is one of those questions where the “canon” history we do have is very thin, but the scraps are actually telling if you squint at them the right way.

We know Alexander Hamilton only really had two brothers: James Jr. (his full brother, named after their father) and Peter Lavien (his half-brother from Rachel’s first marriage). Alexander’s emotional tone toward them in the surviving documents is fascinating. You get this sense of eager loyalty on his part, but also an undertone that they were not necessarily as generous back.

The clearest window is that 1785 letter he writes to James Jr. Alexander is in New York by then, climbing the ranks, married to Eliza, and yet he still reaches out across the ocean to this brother who’s essentially disappeared into obscurity. He offers him money. He literally says, “I will cheerfully pay your draft upon me for fifty pounds”—which is a huge amount btw, today roughly equivalent to £10,000—and then starts giving him big-brother life advice about not rushing into marriage, working hard, and so on. It reads so affectionate: he closes with “your affectionate friend and brother.” It’s Alexander being the responsible one, trying to extend stability to James, even though he himself had grown up abandoned, destitute, and knew full well how precarious money could be.

But in the undertone, you can sense James has been writing him with requests. Repeatedly. Alexander almost anticipates being drained. He tells him he’ll help, but only if James proves he’s industrious, only if he doesn’t marry into a bad situation, only if he uses the money to set up a secure life. That isn’t just generic older-brother advice, that’s the voice of someone who knows his sibling might not use the help wisely. It suggests James was leaning on Alexander’s generosity in a way that could become manipulative.

And then with Peter Lavien, it’s even starker. Peter inherited everything from their mother (because Alexander and James were considered illegitimate). Alexander talks about it decades later with this resigned tone: “the small property which she left went to my half brother Mr. Lavine.” And then, silence. Peter dies in South Carolina, leaves an estate, and Hamilton is the one corresponding with generals and executors about settling it. Again, it’s Alexander being the one left cleaning up. Peter’s entire existence intersects with him only in terms of inheritance and legal headaches. There’s no evidence of warmth.

In short, Peter takes the inheritance. James asks for money and disappears. Neither of them ever seems to give Alexander the same devotion back or, if they have, we lack the historical references to it.

[oddyseye]

Question

I love your Analysis posts on Eurylochus along with Odysseus and I just want your opinion on. Something.

What If Eurylochus and Ctimene had a Daughter?

Like what if Odysseus had a Niece?

But he wouldn't know about her until After his Return

And she's the perfect mix of Eurylochus And Ctimene and has Eurylochus's Eyes

So how do you think their relationship would be?

Do you think he'll feel a Little bad about what has happened between him and Eurylochus?

And what about her relationship with Telemachus and Penelope?

I'm curious on what you think.

Ohhh I love this question.

Okay, so first off—I can’t really say much for Ctimene herself, because we literally don’t get her in the Odyssey beyond a name-drop in relation to Eumaeus’ story. She doesn’t do anything, so her characterization is basically left in the void. So I’ll have to leave her out of the speculation here.

But if we’re talking about her and Eurylochus’ hypothetical daughter...Hoo, boy.

Odysseus would almost definitely have this weird, aching mix of regret and tenderness toward her. Because every time he looks at her, he’d see Eurylochus—his companion, his foil, his rebel brother-in-law who he lost in the mess of the journey. The eyes especially would hit him hard. Homer is obsessed with eyes as markers of identity, and having “Eurylochus’ eyes” would force Odysseus into constantly remembering what happened between them.

On the one hand, he’d know he can’t make up for what happened. On the other, she’d give him the chance to honor Eurylochus in a way that doesn’t involve endless grief or silence. I can absolutely see him being very protective of her, almost overly so, because she’s his niece and because she ties him back to Ithaca in a way the war never could.

And yes, he’d feel guilt. He’s not a man who sits and wallows in guilt long-term, but when it’s personal, he does carry it, and here it would flare up every time he looks at her. This man genuinely weeps at the loss of his men in the poem.

With Telemachus, I think it would be a very natural, sibling-like relationship. Telemachus spent years surrounded by suitors, who were basically his antagonists, and suddenly he’s got someone near his age who is kin, who gets what being Ithacan means. There’s something about Telemachus’ arc that’s about searching for male role models, but imagine him suddenly having this cousin who’s his age (or younger, depending on when she was born). They’d be close, maybe teasing, but also protective of each other.

Penelope would love her. That’s the easiest one for me to imagine. Penelope is so family-oriented in the Odyssey, and she knows what it means to keep bonds alive when the men are away or gone. She’d see her as part of the household, someone to shield and nurture.

[oddyseye]

fuck this supposed to mean.

you're not supposed to do that.

the universe will shatter.

I have an idea.

I am going to be taking back control in my life.

Finally.

-A.Burr

[oddyseye]

If you don't mind, what's something that you find endearing about Hammy?

The thing I find most endearing about him is how much of a father he was. He wasn't a "bare minimum" type of father where he looked at the eldest once as a baby and kept a roof over their heads. He was a workaholic dad who also wrote letters that read equal parts lecture, love note, and life-plan.

In one letter he frets over a sick child and tells Eliza how "dear this Child is to me," praying for recovery with genuine anxiety. He writes in the same letter: "I intend this week to send [the children] into the Country [because of the hot weather]. Yet they seem very unwilling to go from me & it is a great satisfaction to have them with me."

He also didn't just sign checks and show up for ceremonies. He arranged schooling and practical provisioning for his sons, sending them to tutors and boarding when he thought it best for their futures. There are contemporary records noting the Hamiltons placing Philip with a rector's school and Hamilton's hands in the details of his children's education. When she was little, he also fussed over Eliza as an infant and young child because of how sickly she was, calling her nicknames ("Little Betsey") in letters and remarking on her behavior (letters describing her "pouts and plays," family schooling arrangements that included her).

When Philip died after that duel, it revealed how deep his paternal love actually ran. People who saw him at the funeral said they had never seen a man so utterly overwhelmed, Hamilton called Philip's loss "beyond comparison the most afflicting of my life," and had to be physically held up during his funeral. He was literally unable to stand from grief. After his death Angelica suffered a severe breakdown, so he and Eliza tried comforts and accommodations (he even arranged small, comforting items and wrote about family domestic matters).

James recorded his childhood impressions later: he remembered a home where "[Hamilton's] gentle nature rendered his house a joyous one to his children," and described affectionate, governing family routines (breakfast scenes, study schedules). John Church Hamilton became a historian and biographer of his father, and he once recalled that, the day before the duel, he was sitting in a room while his father was standing silently in the doorway. He asked John if he would come and sleep with him that night. He described his father's voice as though he were talking to a brother, not his son. Very early the next morning, his father awakened him, took John's hands in his own, and instructed him to repeat the Lord's Prayer, and then he went off and fucking died.

Although there is so much more to be said about his relationship with his children, I will end this off by saying that Hamilton prepared the week before his duel, and explicitly addressed to Eliza: "Embrace all my darling Children for me. Ever yours, A.H."

It really reads like the last thing a father would want his family to know.

[oddyseye]

It’s not written for you to memorize every single name (nobody in antiquity was sitting there like “yes I remember precisely how many ships the Boeotians sent”, they had multiple versions of every bullshit thing for a reason). It’s a flex: “look how HUGE this war is, look at all the regions of Greece, look at all the names and lineages, look at the scope of this.” Homer is piling it all on to make you dizzy with scale.

So if you’re sitting there like “I cannot keep all these straight in my head”—congratulations, you’re reading it right. You’re feeling the immensity.

Do you need to take notes? Only if you want to, for fun. Some people like making little charts of where everyone came from, or maps with arrows showing ships, but honestly? You can skim it, get the gist (“ok, lots of places, lots of leaders, lots of ships, this is a massive mobilization”), and move on. If you ever wanna come back later when you know more names from the story itself, it’ll start clicking naturally. Context comes with time. You’ll read on, and suddenly one of those guys from the catalogue shows up in the middle of battle and you’ll be like “WAIT I remember his name!! He had 40 ships!!” And it’ll feel like an easter egg.

I started reading the Iliad and WHY IS THERE LIKE 10 PAGES OF JUST INTRODUCING THE KINGS I LITERALLY CANT PRONOUNCE ANYTHING THIS IS HELL

[oddyseye]

Is this a safe place to say how much I dislike Angelica Schuyler/Church, both in the musical and historically?

I don't care for Angelica historically, but I heavily dislike her musical characterization. She's supposed to be "a good sister" to Eliza, but hypocritically tells her sister she wants to "share" Alexander, Alexander admits to Eliza she "tried to take a bite of [him]" WHILE HE WAS ACTIVELY COURTING ELIZA??? She flirts with him in letters, calls him "my Alexander", and is overall not fucking subtle even with her sister RIGHT fucking there in front of their faces (she had more sexual tension with Alexander in one verse of Take A Break than Eliza and him did in the entire musical), yet she gets angry at him for cheating as if she didn't expect that from a man who flirted with her so openly? Like, you're supposedly "the only female character who can match Alexander's wit", which is why you are the only woman who raps in this musical, and yet you couldn't put two and two together that a man who flirts with you while married to your sister would try to cheat on your sister? Is the wit in the room with us right now?

You can frame it a couple of ways: either she was fully aware that they could never be together and was just testing boundaries for her own amusement—or, if Alexander had ever actually made a move on her, she probably wouldn't have said no.

Both possibilities are kind of awful! Both of them are complicit in creating a mess that was entirely avoidable!

There's definitely a tragic element in their relationship, but it's almost entirely self-inflicted on Angelica's side. She played with fire and then acted shocked when she got burned. This is partly why I dislike Congratulations: "I languished in a loveless marriage in London / I lived only to read your letters..." And whose fault is that, babe??

Lin wanted to portray her as cutting Alexander off for Eliza's sake in The Reynolds Pamphlet, but even there, she explicitly says "put what we had aside", confirming she did believe he loved her and indulged in it anyway.

Yes, Alexander is at fault too, but Angelica's behavior makes this "tragedy" largely self-brought and she wallows in her own self-pity during Congratulations, where Eliza is not her focus.

All in all, I see where Lin was going with her character, but the execution could have been a lot better and a lot less hypocritical, considering the hypocrisy is not something Lin wanted us to pay attention to/have in his work at all.

[oddyseye]

I’m getting all my knowledge about the odyssey and more in depth stuff about the founding fathers (and burr) from you. (Mostly because my English classes didn’t go over the odyssey)

thank you for saying that! it does mean a lot. but, do not rely solely on me.

yes, i know my stuff, i read obsessively, i check the sources, i even cross-reference the obscure ones that most people wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. but you need to read too. don’t just take my word for it. don’t let me be the filter between you and the Odyssey, or Hamilton, or literally anything else.

when you read the sources yourself—Homer in the original Greek if you can (even a translation is fine, just don’t settle for a single lazy one), the Federalist Papers, letters, contemporary accounts—you get your own opinion. not mine. not some tumblr summary. yours. even if i think i’m accurate, my perspective is still, by definition, my own lens on the world. your lens can see things differently, and trust me, it should. it will make everything richer, and all of it will feel alive instead of just “stuff i read online.”

so, yeah, keep following me if you want my spins, but read. read everything. challenge me, argue with me, fact-check me. it’s the only way you’ll have a brain of your own instead of just absorbing someone else’s.

[oddyseye]

I just feel bad for Hamilton whenever he sent money to his dad's side of the family. Baby, nooooo. I know you're desperate, but it's not gonna make them love you

I get so soft for Hamilton in the worst, most ridiculous way because he spent his whole life trying to purchase the human things money just simply cannot buy for you. Love. Respect. A seat at a table that was never really set for him.

What's poetic even for the real life man, is how much he loved the Iliad (literally ended an essay with an Iliad quote once), and how much his life followed the pattern of it: exile → achieving glory → trying to buy back your humanity with spoils.

His correspondence shows him replying to his brother’s appeals and promising to “cheerfully pay” drafts when he could. In June 1785 he writes to his brother James that he will “cheerfully pay [his] draft upon [himself] for fifty pounds sterling,” and explains he’s feeling his brother’s distress and wants to help as far as he can. the tone is equal parts brotherly pity and the financial diplomat we know him as. He literally signs up to cover a debt for his stupid brother.

What hurts most is that it wasn’t even just James. There are letters and notes showing Alex kept up contact with his father’s side, like you said—cousins and distant kin—and even did favors: introducing cousins, hosting sailors, helping arrange positions (he helped secure a lieutenancy for a kinsman, for example). He named his country house “The Grange” after his father’s ancestral place in Scotland, which reads like a wistful trophy for a past that never accepted him. He wanted the lineage and the approval so badly he kept handing out his currency to the people who’d been absent when he needed them.

I feel for him. The narcissism of hope is a brutal thing.

[oddyseye]

Helen concept: She wears a mask to avoid overwhelming others with her beauty, only if she desires to.

Mask that would fit her imo

Also her mask cracks from time to time, and it finally breaks during the sack of Troy

So basically, symbolism!

I discussed with @oddyseye I just had to show this idea to the world

[oddyseye]

Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton: The Musical) & Eurylochus of Same (Epic: The Musical) : Two restlessly hungry hearts in different seas, and what happens when you mash them together (because of course I did) .

Made for @starsintheendlessnight !! Much love, now make the art you promised to us.

Hamilton arrives on stage as a hurricane, a voice that will not stop. Eurylochus arrives as the low-burning ember next to Odysseus’ torch—always practical, often bitter, sometimes coward, sometimes prophet of the group’s worst instincts.

On the surface, one is a Founding Father, the other is a second-string captain with a history of interpersonal friction. But drop the costumes. Strip both of their period-appropriate props. What you have in each is a compulsive mover: someone who treats motion as meaning, action as identity, and consequence as an inconvenient side-effect.

Hamilton and Eurylochus are structurally isomorphic characters: each manifests an obsessive kinetics—a belief that value is made by moving and making—and each demonstrates the moral economy of ambition, when survival-skill collapses into ego, and when ego pretends it’s merely commonsense.

(Yes, I will use words like “isomorphic” because I want to sound like I have a doctorate and also like I’m yelling at the stars.)

Most readers treat Hamilton and Eurylochus in different genres: one is a myth-adjacent (largely modern) reimagining of a Founding Father, the other is a theatrical reworking of Homeric sidelines.

But both come to us through mediation—through songs and scripts thirsting for condensation.

Where Hamilton’s life becomes the musicalized myth of capitalism’s oral history, Eurylochus becomes the essential foil for Odysseus’ moral ambiguities in Epic’s dramatization: either the necessary skeptic or the coward who kills the group’s hope.

Hamilton’s whole identity is a ledger. He writes, fights, schemes—every action is a deposit into the account of legacy. He can’t rest because rest equals erasure. Eurylochus’ identity is an action too: keeping people alive (or failing at it), deciding when to mutiny, the way he interprets risk as reality.

Both reduce being to doing.

But there’s nuance: Hamilton’s motion is optimism wrapped in aggression—“I am not throwing away my shot”—while Eurylochus’ motion is defensive, born of scarcity: don’t risk the ship for glory; don’t trust the witch; let survival be the metric.

And yet, both are morally compromised when their kinetic logic goes unchecked. Hamilton’s hustle becomes obsession that tramples obligations, and Eurylochus’ pragmatism becomes a refusal of hope that ends in betrayal (or perceived betrayal, through Odysseus’ eyes at least).

Translation: the same engine—motion-as-proof—can generate revolution or ruin.

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed, is how both characters weaponize language.

Hamilton raps, cajoles, legislates: he transforms noise into political capital. Eurylochus speaks like someone who has learned the language of necessity: short, blunt, full of warnings, and even he has what some people claim to be a “rap segment” (which is untrue, but not the point).

Notice the pattern: both are rhetorically convincing to certain audiences.

Hamilton convinces the ambitious, the restless, the future-focused. Eurylochus convinces the fearful, the hungry, the tired.

But here’s the cut: rhetorical power masks the ethical gap.

Hamilton’s charisma justifies decisions that harm others (the Reynolds scandal is justified by “Hurricane”), and Eurylochus’ grim speeches justify choices that lead to slaughter (the cattle? the mutiny?).

Their words are functional: they don’t aim to be beautiful, they aim to move a group. Beauty gets sacrificed to momentum.

The argument by loyalty might be the most interesting one we’ve come to see thus far. It’s far more interesting to dissect than the Epic fandom’s clean-cut “Odysseus is loyal to his wife!” against Hamilton’s cheating.

But because of this, they forget that Hamilton is loyal to the idea of the republic and to his own legacy. His loyalty is structural, to institutions and to his own future. Eurylochus is loyal to the crew’s immediate survival; he prefers bread to stories.

Both loyalties are sincere, which is what makes them dangerous: sincerity permits cruelty. As Odysseus’ sincere love for Penelope is what causes his horrid actions, it stands to reason Eurylochus’ sincere loyalty to the crew grants him permission to be cruel to Odysseus for one song.

This is where fandoms die on the hill. People will always call Hamilton a villain for selfishness and Eurylochus a coward for dissent.

I refuse this easy moralism. Their loyalties are both compromises: Hamilton sacrifices private needs for public myth (or vice versa), Eurylochus sacrifices idealism for safety. The real question is: whose cost counts as ethical? If the ship survives but the soul is lost, was it worth it? If the nation is built on paper but lives on blood, did we win?

People call Hamilton disloyal because he betrays private codes for public ones: he publishes the Reynolds Pamphlet, he litigates, he refuses to help the French in their war against England, he uses reputation like a ledger. And people call Eurylochus disloyal because he points out danger, he resists a romance with glory, he sometimes undermines the charismatic leader.

Both are accused of breaking faith because their loyalty doesn’t match the story people want to tell, and because they are foils to the main narrators of the story with whom we most sympathize—Odysseus and Aaron Burr, sir.

Why is that dumb? Because most of us confuse performative fidelity with actual fidelity. If someone honors you by posting about you on social media, that’s performative. If someone honors you by building a courthouse so your grandchildren don’t get robbed blind by lawless men, that’s structural. If someone stands between a wave and your child, that’s fidelity.

Both kinds are real—stop ranking them like moral Pokémon.

Loyalty that looks ugly is often more honest. Love that’s performative wants credit, but love that’s true often wants none. Hamilton and Eurylochus are operating in the unglamorous register of care. Care often involves paperwork, negotiation, unromantic choices. You don’t get glowing sonnets for paperwork. You get tax codes and stern shipboard commands. But those are the bones. They outlast sonnets.

Both characters are domestic tragedies. They lack the grandeur of classical hubris—there’s no dramatic chorus screaming “too much!”—yet they embody the same arc: appetite → action → fallout. Hamilton dies because he lets a score be settled with bullets. Eurylochus dies because his refusal to hold onto heroism fractures group identity.

Their appetite is small at first: a hunger for safety, for being seen, for not being invisible.

For Hamilton it’s the immigrant hunger—not just money or status but a terror that if he stops moving the world will forget he existed. For Eurylochus it’s the hunger of a man who’s seen too many bodies and learned to measure value in breaths left.

Thus, motion is their language. Hamilton writes, litigates, duels in defense of a self that must be validated. Eurylochus commands, resists, sometimes mutinies—acts he frames as “keeping people alive.” Their actions are performative to themselves. They are convincing themselves as much as others. Action is not simply a tool to change the world; it is a therapy method, a compulsive reassurance: “If I do this, maybe the future will prove me right or wrong.”

The fallout becomes their death after their constant hunger. But what are their endpoints like?

For Hamilton, dueling is performative masculinity disguised as a moral claim. He needs the score settled in a physical, irrevocable way. The fallout is immediate and canonical—his legacy is rewritten by the shot, by the narrative others tell afterward.

Eurylochus, on the other hand, resists heroism and glory, because he measures value in living bodies. He prioritizes breath over legacy, and the community punishes him by erasing his humanity by making him speedrun through Odysseus’ (the monster’s) mistakes: he spares Odysseus instead of killing him (the Cyclops), he kills the cattle (Odysseus kills the sheep), then faces the wrath of Zeus (for Odysseus’ case, Poseidon).

Both choose a kind of fidelity that cancels other fidelities. Hamilton chooses to protect his honor/legacy at the cost of living; Eurylochus chooses the living at the cost of his own myth. Each refuses a reconciliation that might have spared them.

Crucially, neither is purely villainous, and many would agree that, had they been in their shoes, they would lack the resources, time or bravery, to do something differently from how they had. Musically, both are written to be sympathetic irregardless. The score redeems, tones humanize, staging softens edges.

Because their deaths, I will say bluntly, both read as suicide attempts. Not necessarily “he pointed a gun at himself and pulled the trigger” in the most literal sense, but like a suicide of intent—a deliberate choosing of an ending smuggled into a performance.

Look at Hamilton’s lyrics:

Burr, my first friend, my enemy / Maybe the last face I ever see / If I throw away my shot, is this how you’ll remember me? /…I catch a glimpse of “the other side” / …Teach me how to say goodbye / Rise up…Eliza / My love, take your time / I’ll see you on the other side.

There's so much performance wrapped up in those bars. Hamilton turns honor and grievance into punctuation. The duel is not just a conflict, it’s a narrative tool he uses to close his account. That lyric—“I’ll see you on the other side”—reads like pre-meditated farewell. It’s tender and theatrical all at once. It’s a man scripting his end so that it reads noble in the retelling.

Suicide, in the literary (not literal, literary) sense, is not always a collapse into despair. Sometimes it’s a vow to control the story of your death. Hamilton chooses a dramatic punctuation instead of open-ended living. He opts for the ledger closed with a shot because legacy is the language he’s been fluent in since childhood. That’s deliberate. That’s a self-authored ending.

The line Eurylochus devastating in its simplicity:

“Ody, we're never gonna get to make it home, you know it's true.”

And this is said right before the cattle is killed. This is a crushed-out observation, a sentence that tastes like surrender.

His act (or advocacy) of slaughtering the cattle, or at least siding with survival over a mythic future, is a kind of suicide. He kills the possibility of the epic homecoming in order to make sure the immediate bodies do not die starved with him in command, due to how long they’ve starved under Odysseus.

Both of these men are aware of the death they are inviting, they’ve processed it, and they gave us a final performance before the curtains closed on them.

These men were never meant to be lovers with the future. They were never supposed to marry time. They were never supposed to hold it in their hands, tie it with ribbons, or negotiate with it like some minor official. The future was their enemy. The only thing they ever tried to do was wrestle it, bargain with it, and sometimes strike it down just to see if it would bleed.

Both deaths are final, both are conscious and orchestrated, both are surrender and resistance folded together. Both are tragic because they loved, fiercely, but could not love the thing they wanted most: tomorrow.

Their biggest enemy was not a person, not a duel, not a crew. It was time. The only thing they ever truly loved in the end (as even Hamilton slows down after his son’s death)—in that wild, desperate, uncompromising way—was the fleeting present.

And the present, as always, slips away.