#(specifically homer)

[lyculuscaelus]

So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking people to stop trying to make Odysseus look nice in their works cuz he’s a “messed-up person in the mythology”. Your opinion is valid however I have but one thing to point out:

You want to know who started all this? Who started to “make Odysseus look nice” in the first place?

It’s Homer. It’s nobody else but Homer himself.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would try to murder people out of his own interests. He’d murder Palamedes without remorse (and we’d be cheering over this but it’s a murder after all), he’d attempt to murder Diomedes just to get the Palladium himself, he’d volunteer to kill Astyanax…meanwhile you wouldn’t find any mention of either Palamedes or Nauplius in Homer’s poems, neither did he mention anything abt the Palladium heist (and Diomedes necessity did not happen until Conon’s version), the death of Astyanax, the distribution of war prizes, etc. And all the details in the Odyssey seemed to deny the existence of Nauplius’s vengeance at all, so Odysseus would not take any of the blame.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be depicted as “cruel, treacherous”, meanwhile in book 10 of the Iliad Odysseus was not mentioned to have killed anyone during the marauding, neither did he promise Dolan anything at all. The negative interpretations are denied by these details subtly put by Homer.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be widely known as a “coward” for only shooting arrows from afar. But Homer gave him a spear and had him absolutely slaying in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. That part of Ajax’s speech was invalid already.

Most importantly—a non-Homeric Odysseus would be having kids everywhere else, and the loyalty to his own wife as seen in the Odyssey is no where to be found. Meanwhile his lineage was a single-son line made by Zeus in the Odyssey, and his love for Penelope was one of his main drives, especially seen in book 5 of the Odyssey. He loved his family as a loving parent—something you don’t get to see in most of the non-Homeric writings—for most of the time they followed a different tradition indeed, in which Odysseus wasn’t half as nice as in the Odyssey.

TL;DR: in case you haven’t noticed, the characterization of the Homeric Odysseus was quite different from a non-Homeric version of Odysseus. It’s not that Homer didn’t know of the existence of other versions—he knew them too well, which is why in his version of the story, you don’t get to see any mention of them.

[sandwich2451]

for some reason I've started the epic quest to try translating the Iliad as so many have done before me (I've translated 20 lines which is a lot with only a dictionary but very little in the long run)

but page 1 i saw a funny epitheton ornans in chriseis's speech. he says:

"sons of atreus and other greeks with good greaves..." (greave = shin armor)

like, how stupidly funny is that? bro is coming to free his daughter but nooo he must mention the shin armor of the greeks first. peak flattery. I will be using this

I'll be making more posts about the weird shit i find in translation but i thought that description was just so funny

[arttsuka]

I need you to stick with me here but Jedtavius as Patroclus and Achilles

Sorry I’ve been reading The Song of Achilles and it’s getting to me

Oh... so who's who? In my drawing Achilles is Octavius and Patroclus is Jedediah

I basically redrew that one statue (I know it's not both of them but I liked the pose ok? Forgive me). Also I took my chance to draw Jed's funny underpants to lighten up the mood a bit.

Sorry if this doesn't meet your vision :(

That was a weird amalgamation of 2 different photos in an attempt to fix the original (I literally cropped it, fixed some mistakes digitally and then took another picture of a blank paper to use as background. The things I do as a traditional artist). Here's the picture before I fixed the mistakes .

Usually I am more careful and don't make that many mistakes. But also, I work on bigger drawings like this for at least a week, so yeah...

I wanted to draw the iconic red figure pottery art of them but I felt like that would take me way too long :/

[loracarol]

Poseidon isn't in God Games because in The Odyssey Poseidon was off in Ethiopia receiving sacrificial offerings when Athena asked Zeus to intercede on Odysseus's behalf.

But at that moment, Poseidon was among the Ethiopians, very far away, those same Ethiopians, the most remote of people, who live divided in different groups, one where Hyperion goes down, the other where he rises. Poseidon went there to receive a sacrificial offering to him— bulls and rams—and was now sitting at a banquet, enjoying himself. But other gods had gathered in the great hall of Olympian Zeus.

(source)

Which like, yeah, it would be cool to have had Poseidon in God Games, but the fact that it's canon to the Odyssey made me laugh.

But also now I'm picturing an Epic AU where everything is the same, but in Get in the Water, Poseidon is wearing a dumb little party hat and still snacking on sacrificial offerings & he's pissed because he had to leave a party early for this fuck u Odysseus.

[cjbolan]

With the Mid-Autumn Festival coming up… I wonder how Odysseus post-Lotus Eaters incident would react to seeing lotus seed mooncakes .

[kindred-spirit-93]

back from the dead (snort)

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WAIT WAIT ARE YOU TELLING ME DEMETER HAS AN EPITHET REFERENCING VENGENFUL FURIES?! WAHT??? >:D!?!

asdfghjkl thank you! really glad u like her lol shes becoming my favouritest to doodle lol. also not at all! i really love that you kept the aspect of her grief that so many are keen to twist to villainise her or erase completely to invalidate her. both are awful imo

heres a quote from le ask (soon i promise 😭😂): "Demeter and Persephone share a strong bond compared to the other gods. After Persephones "death" Demeter was never really the same. Demeter relives the painful cycle annually, and carries a deep rooted bitterness toward the other gods for it."

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i actually think its hilarious and awesome to see that demeter can be herself with those shes close with (one of my favourite things in characterisations is when you have what seems to be a stern and serious presenting person breaking character at a dumb or inappropriate joke or something to that affect, it kills me everytime its so funny!)

anyway demeter is NOT not be confused with gaia (my girl knows how to have fun lol). but much like the rest of us shes got issues to work with and experiences to heal and grow from *finger guns*. 10/10 i think u did her justice. so much so i drew this for u hehe

under no cicumstances should she meet micheal scott lmao. humanity will never hear the end of "thats what _ said" jokes. ever.

her hair is lime green btw the light is making her blonde :/

[nightmarearian]

tfw you just give up and make monster Ody a shapeshifter cause he has like 5 different animal motifs and/or similar monsters you could pull from

[improperingenue]

I put "dark academia" in quotes because my thoughts on it are so complicated I could write a goddam essay

[yea-baiyi]

fuck it, yushi-huang as iphigenia

[fluffypotatey]

totally forgot about my tendency to obsessively check the original source material when i begin writing

[lyculuscaelus]

Petition to get Homer an epithet like φιλομήριος (philomerios, “fond of thighs” aka “thigh-lover”, made from φιλο- and μηρίον) cuz bro just loves thighs so much you see all he could think abt are roasted bull thighs, roasted bull thighs, Odysseus’s fine thighs, and roasted bull thi—wait what did I just say again

[friedmagazinebouquet]

Do you ever just want to hit historical-adjacent characters because they were idiots?

Because I sure do

[mythology-void]

no. no no no no no no NO NO NO NO GOD WHY PLEASE NO

[could-they-be-a-pro-wrestler]

How successful would Homer Simpson…

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[crochetingwiththecat]

YARN ACQUIRED!

Now just to wind it and start trying not to mess this project up! At least I have some music to listen to while I work 🖤

[slutpoppers]