#I DID almost start crying reading about iphigenia's sacrifice and I rarely ever cry over fiction

[agnesandhilda]

while I’m on the topic of the orestia my OFFICIAL Iphigenia Take is that I think agamemnon was wrong, and I don’t consider the question of whether or not agamemnon had to kill her for some broader geopolitical reason relevant to the issue. no matter what his justification was, he still had his daughter killed so he could go to war, and---maybe it’s just the translation I read (the ted hughes version), though every translation is gonna handle key scenes differently so there’s naturally some iffiness there---my reading of that is that this is because he prioritizes his ability to claim power for himself and assert his status as a man over iphigenia’s life. he’s upset about it, but to me that makes him look worse. like, “woe is me, I’ve got to kill you so I can plunder this city and enslave the people living there, because I’d rather have that than your life.” if he knows it’s wrong, if he’s torn-up about it, then him having iphigenia killed anyway so he can do violence to the people of troy just makes him look worse! it makes me angrier with him, honestly.

skinning the children for a war drum or whatever idk I’m not a hozier fan