#like fuck Agamemnon as well but fuck Achilles

[masterofthewarcry]

no, no you don't GET IT. okay - so he's only a little kid when his dad goes off to war and dies, right? he doesn't know his dad. all he knows is that his dad was a great warrior favored by athena, and that he has to avenge him (IMAGINE a little kid sitting by his mother's feet while she spins wool telling him he has to avenge his father some day, imagine it). so he grows up a little, following in his father's footsteps to become a great warrior, and then BAM he gets thrown into full blown WAR at fourteen. it's epigoni time people. he's the youngest there, this is the first time he's ever experienced real battle, and its in THEBES where his dad (who's ghost has been haunting him the whole time) DIED. anywhere he steps on the battlefield could be the very spot where his dad died. but he makes it through. they take the city, sack it, go home.

and that in itself is enough to make a man a legend, right? but almost as soon as he gets home, there's trouble in calydonia (where his grandfather is supposed to rule, but he gets usurped by an uncle or cousin or something). so he fucks off to calydonia to sort that out and ends up having to fight in ANOTHER huge battle to reinstate his grandfather as the king. but again, he pulls through, makes it out alive and goes home.

he gets married to aegialia, who's significantly older than him and who he doesn't know all that well just in time for adrastus (the king of argos and one of the original seven against thebes) to kick it. now, i'm not saying that adrastus was something of a father figure to him, but i think it makes sense narratively. so adrastus kicks it, and he inherits the city of argos, again being very young and not knowing much about ruling. he doesn't really get a chance to learn though because BAM it's trojan war time baby!!

so he gets together all the able-bodied argives (which is a LOT, like he's bringing a significant portion of the greek force) and they sail to aulis to meet up with the rest of the gang. sthenelus and euryalus (two of his buddies from the epigoni days) come with him - i like to think that they're like older brothers to him; sources he can look to for advice and support. ANYWAYS everybody gets to aulis, he goes to meet the rest of the kings and as soon as he introduces himself, everyone's talking about his father.

but its fine - even though he's proven himself to be a more capable warrior than his father was already. hes not here to cause a scene (no, they have achilles for that - but they dont have him yet so hold that thought), hes here to do a job. and do a job he will, because someone has to go fetch achilles from hiding! better send the young guy who MIGHT be able to hold his own against the strongest warrior in the world if he decides to fight back. and odysseus, of course.

they couldn't be more different, he and odysseus. odysseus is older, he's not been in a battle like this before, he has a son, he's generally regarded as a good king. whereas all he's ever known is war, he barely knows his own wife (DEFINITELY not enough to have a son), and he knows next to nothing about being a king. yet they hit it off. odysseus is charismatic and funny and he's ENRAPTURED by the way he talks about ithaca. he's never known anything like that. argos is home, sure, but ithaca is EVERYTHING to odysseus.

they collect achilles, with some trickery, and the real trojan war starts going. ILIAD TIME it's been nine years. he and odysseus are buddy buddy now (athena boys in business fr), achilles is on the fritz throwing a temper tantrum (NOT in a useful way on the battlefield). agamemnon is talking about giving up. menelaus ALMOST got paris's ass but aphrodite spirited him away. he and odysseus are holding this operation together. he's putting all this previous war experience to good use absolutely KILLING IT on the battlefield. he's going after aeneas, and then aphrodite, and then ARES the GOD OF WAR HIMSELF. achilles has NOTHING on him at this point. but the whole army is still praying for achilles return.

but it's fine - even though he's single handedly running the show at this point. he gets shot through the foot by paris and odysseus pulls it out because THEY WATCH EACH OTHERS BACKS, they look after each other. NIGHT RAID TIME, he and odysseus hit the town (and by hit the town i mean kill ~14 men under the cover of darkness and steal their horses), common athena boys W. they wash all the blood of themselves in the sea together afterwards, classic bro activities. he's feeding himself with odysseus's stories at this point because the way he talks about ithaca really does make it sound like something worth fighting for.

achilles comes back- OOPS, we thought it was achilles but its NOT its patroclus in his armor and now hes DEAD. achilles comes back for real, and now HECTOR is dead. who's that up on the walls of troy with a bow is that-? BAM, achilles dead, shot by paris. things are looking bleak and good at the same time. the palladium needs to be stolen so they can sack troy? easy money. NIGHT RAID PART 2, stealing the palladium time. easy money until odysseus decides to try and stab him in the back. he's devastated - his closest friend, caught up in the idea of having all the glory for himself. they've switched positions, now he is the one who wants nothing to do with this war, and odysseus is the glory-hungry king. heartbreaking.

TROJAN HORSE, the time is finally ripe to sack troy. everyone's behaving badly, people are getting raped on temple steps, it's a mess. odysseus throws a baby off the walls of troy. he's one of the only ones who doesn't get caught up in it because he's tired. he's tired of war and he wants to go home, even though argos is nothing like the home he's built in his head. there is no wife and son to return to. he knows nothing about being king. the rocky coasts of ithaca do not await him.

troy burns. the war is over, the ships are loaded with spoils, he sets sail for home. he arrives to find that sthenelus's SON, his BROTHER's SON has been fucking his wife and usurped his throne. and for a minute, it looks like he's about to go to war again, but he's tired. he's tired and it's his best friend's son, and it's a woman he never really got to know or care about and it's a throne he never asked for. so he just leaves. he takes his spoils, gets back on a boat and leaves. for ithaca.

he doesn't know how odysseus is going to react when he shows up. but, as it turns out, he didn't have to worry about that because odysseus isn't there. but penelope is. wise, patient penelope who listens to him talk about the war at troy and odysseus and how he's so tired. penelope who says, stay.

so he stays. and he waits for odysseus. and he learns things that aren't war. he learns what it feels like to carry a little boy on his shoulders. he learns what it feels like to have dirt under his nails and a sore back after a long day's work at the plow. he listens to penelope talk about odysseus, and shares his own stories too. he learns that he likes penelope, a lot.

enough that when the suitors start pouring in, he fends them off as best he can. he won't marry her - he won't do that to odysseus, but he will help her unravel the funeral shroud she's weaving each night. he will hold her while she cries for her husband who is likely dead at the bottom of the sea. he will start teaching telemachus his way around the blade when he asks.

and when odysseus does return home? he almost gets stabbed. odysseus is FURIOUS that someone he TRUSTED would come to court his wife, but that's not what happened at all, he's been protecting her the best he can. teaching his son to do the same. he's been waiting for odysseus with them. it's a teary reunion, of course, and then it's a bloodbath and then all the suitors are dead. he washes the blood out from underneath his nails for the last time.

see? do you see? it's about being HAUNTED by the legacy of a man you didn't even know, and it's about EXPECTATIONS and it's about figuring out what YOU want instead of what you're 'supposed' to want, and it's about GROWING past being a warrior and learning to be a PERSON, and it's about LOVING someone in a way that's beyond platonic or romantic. do you get it now? do you get it?

[siingomuse]

See, I like Achilles. I think his love story with Patroclus is absolutely beautiful, and I agree he had some amazing moments. But does that mean I excuse what he did? Gods no, of course not. He was definitely a bad person. I mean- killing Troilus in his fathers temple? What the fuck, man? That's messed up. (There are some versions where he rapes Troilus, but I like to ignore those ones.) But was he that bad? Yes- during the Trojan war, that is. But he was a young man gone to war too soon- he was 17 when it started. But before that? No. He was trying to avoid the war, and then when he went to the war, well, he had to be bad. And he was. He was like, really bad. He had pride, but not hubris. I mean, that's what caused the death of Patroclus. Refusing to fight because Agamemnon hurt his pride, and then Patrocus donned his armour, blah blah blah Hector killed Patroclus, blah blah Achilles got really mad. So yeah. I like Achilles- but he's a stupid, prideful guy and his actions led to the death of multiple people, INCLUDING his boyfriend. Not the smartest or best guy, clearly.

[dionysism]

okay fuck it tier list of every greek mythology or greek myth inspired musical i've listened to (so far)

with, if you care, short reviews for each below the cut. i'm like half asleep but take my poorly organized thoughts

paris the musical

this one is my all time favorite of all the ones listed here. the musical scores and vocals are just on another level. it's a rock opera so it's got guitar solos and the songs are so catchy. business is my favorite track i could loop it for weeks. i also love their patroclus characterization and i am obsessed with achilles in this unironically one of my top patroachilles adaptations of all time and the musical isn't even about them 😭😭 AND PARIS... the actual focus of the musical, i love this take on him too. it's kinda comical but also actually tragic at the same time. which i mean. paris is kinda comical but ultimately tragic in general so its fair 💀 things definitely go down differently in this than in the iliad though like agamemnon and the greeks are actually planning to invade troy before paris even shows up to take helen and ulysses (odysseus) is the only one who thinks this is stupid. he does manage to convince the rest of them to maybe Not, but then paris takes helen after what's supposed to be him going there to strike a trade deal. and agamemnon uses that as the perfect excuse to justify something he already wanted to do unprovoked anyway. also agamemnon and menelaus were going to violate xenia and kill paris in their home after making him a guest (again, before he does anything with helen) which was ?!?!!? but like similar to epic this is more like an au to me than a faithful iliad adaptation. i also love this helen characterization and the whole dynamic between hector paris and cassandra i wish i could put them all in my mouth and chew them up

ulysses dies at dawn

this is another great one. i will say this is the only album from the mechs i've listened to and the band itself has a whole ton of lore so there may be details i'm missing but i love it so much. this is definitely more of an inspired by tale—takes place in the future (i think?) on a planet that's entirely machine and metal and all animals and natural life is extinct. and all the characters are named after greek mythos characters and they have similar stories to their original counterparts but adapted to this futuristic universe and it's just so unbelievably cool. also ulysses nonbinary in this?! (the narrator says the records are lost to time and we can't be sure if ulysses was a "man, woman, both, or neither" and only refer to them with they/them pronouns) anyway i won't say too much on this one because the story tells itself and i don't want to spoil but GO LISTEN this album is fantastic

hadestown

this one i think is the most popular/well known on this list so most of you have probably heard of it but i'll still give my review. everything about this musical is incredible. i absolutely adore this take on orpheus and eurydice. and this is a take on persephone and hades i don't totally hate (because usually i do) and the way at times they paralleled orpheus to hades??? there was a quote i read from its wiki page once that sums it up pretty well, from todd osborne, "it is a musical both about how art can save us and how, especially in an apocalyptic world, hope might be the only thing we have left." just such a beautiful musical and beautiful story and the themes and messages like stop i could talk about this musical for hours let me stop

for epic i've already summed up most of my thoughts on it here

theseus the musical

um. i'm not going to lie there's multiple parts of this where i do not know what they are saying. i have auditory processing issues and i usually really need the lyrics and i cannot find any anywhere for this so i'm kinda just going on vibes. but the songs are catchy and i like the parts i do understand 😭 and well i love theseus. dearly. my little princess with a disorder my freakazoid i want to trap him in a jar like a bug and shake him around his enclosure. i'll kind of take literally anything i can get on him

penelope off broadway

full title is penelope or how the odyssey was really written and this is such a fun one. this is a comedy musical and the premise is that the epic poem, the odyssey, actually comes from fake letters penelope wrote to stall the suitors in odysseus' absence. so she's just making shit up like "umm... my men got turned into pigs so i'm gonna be late sorry babe :/" and signing it as odysseus. obviously not the most accurate characterizations but again its more of a comedy spinoff than a faithful retelling. telemachus also gets a cute little romance. (spoilers ahead if you care) they scared me for a second i thought they were having it that odysseus cheated penelope and she was gonna leave him but that's not the case and it has a happy ending so <3 this one is just so funky and silly like if you want a lighthearted not super serious musical you will love this it's really adorable and the woman who plays penelope's voice is incredible like omg some of the high notes she hits??? woah

jasper in deadland (tw suicide mention)

this one is also an inspired by/based on tale where jasper (orpheus) follows his friend agnes (eurydice) into deadland in an attempt to get her back from what was either an accident or a suicide attempt (but most likely suicide) he runs into various figures from greek norse and egyptian mythology and like it wasn't bad or anything really the songs just weren't catchy enough for me. i'm not gonna lie that's literally my only issue. i just cannot get into it and listen to it multiple times if it's not catchy enough. but the plot is cute!!

percy jackson the musical

i just don't personally care for percy jackson, sorry. never really did. you'd think as a greek mythology obsessed child i'd eat it up and i mean as a kid i did like it a little but i don't know it just never hooked me. i've tried to get back into it but it's even less enjoyable to me now unfortunately. the songs weren't catchy (to me) and i didn't like the lyrics either. it's not necessarily a bad musical. it's just not my thing

aristos the musical

sorry it just kinda felt like tsoa the musical to me and i immediately couldn't enjoy it 😭😭 that's literally all i have to say

[dootznbootz]

I don't think Greek Mythology retellings/adaptions/inspired/etc. are necessarily "evil"...but I DO think people REALLY need to understand that there's a huge difference between the actual mythology and certain media.

I feel like people have to basically do a "Fandom ___" to say the different versions. Like "PJO ___", "Hades game ___", "TSOA ___". For it to be understood that these depictions are DIFFERENT. I'm saying this as someone who grew up reading PJO and still has a soft spot for it. But as someone who really loves Greek Mythology as well, I sometimes get really SAD.

I'm going to use the comparison of Howl's Moving Castle with it's Book Vs. Movie. I enjoy both!!! But they are honestly very different. In the movie there is no "sister swap", Markle isn't a young teenager, Sophie doesn't throw weed killer at Howl, and many more moments. But I enjoy both because even though there are changes they still keep components that are ingrained into the characters!

In some Greek Myth retellings/adaptations/stories/etc., characters are...SO different from the source material. That's fine...Choose what you want with your story... But folks should know that the modern adaptations are NOT the source material!!!

It bothers me that a lot of these wonderful myths and stories are twisted up and seen so differently because of a modern version of them. You can have that character be "awful" or a certain way in your story. But I almost feel that as fans, it's not good to generalize them or see it as "This is the truth". People are hating the mythological figure when it's only in that interpretation they are like that.

In PJO, Ares is "Zeus' favorite", isn't a good dad, a misogynist, etc. The actual myths? One of his Epithets is LITERALLY "Feasted by Women", in the Iliad everybody basically bullies him with Zeus literally saying he hates him. He cries when he learns one of his sons is killed in the war. He literally kills someone about to rape his daughter. Ares isn't perfect but it makes me sad with how he's viewed and talked about when it's only in PJO he's like that. Same with Dionysus. Read the Bacchae, you'll love it.

In Lore Olympus, Apollo rapes Persephone (noticing the fact that modern takes on the myths add rapes where there never were hmmmmm) when he never did in any of the myths.

In TSOA, Thetis is cruel when in the Iliad, she is such a loving mother to Achilles. She grieved alongside her son over Patroclus. Also with Agamemnon. In Ipheginia at Aulis, Agamemnon is a MESS. He adored his children.

In Circe, Odysseus is viewed as a selfish man who ONLY hurts others and doesn't care about his family when that is LITERALLY his one consistent character trait. HE is actually the one who is the victim of rape. Circe was never raped.

Medusa is only a victim in Ovid's, a Roman man, works. Not in GREEK mythology. She was just a cool monster. Leave Perseus alone. Poseidon and Medusa actually had a consensual relationship in Greek Mythology!

These adaptations/retellings/inspired by/etc. whatever anybody wants to call them, are not the real myths! They may be similar in some ways but to just generalize them or hate the deity/mythological figure because of something they did in the new media feels fucked up!

You can enjoy these new stories. There's nothing wrong with that!!! But know they're not the real myths. Maybe even label it as "I hate ____'s version of ____". As that makes it clear what version you're talking about.

[rowanisawriter]

wip wednesday

f1 iliad AU

.

“Pat.” Diomedes takes a seat on the edge of a bench close to the windows, right beside where Patroclus stands. He’s still completely suited up. “Vibes are fucked in this place today. Achilles might as well have killed Odysseus, he’s been wandering around like a ghost with unfinished business.”

Patroclus can’t tear his eyes away from the screens above the track, the image of Achilles and his pink cheeks, his jaw set, his hands balled into fists at his side as he and Agamemnon trade words. The headline reads, “Chosen one chooses to walk”. Diomedes follows his gaze and rolls his eyes.

“I hate this chosen one shit,” he says. “Can’t a man be good at racing without all this prophecy and destiny talk?”

Patroclus shrugs. “It sells tickets.”

“I sell tickets too. And so do you. And we don’t have media on our ass claiming we’re chosen for anything.”

Patroclus looks around for a subject change. The rivalry between drivers on a different team is none of his business. Achilles has had this talk of destiny floating around him since he was born, the son of the legendary racer Peleus. Of course the media would bestow a title like Chosen One onto him. And of course a driver as talented as Diomedes would find such a title boring and predictable.

“All this destiny bullshit is spoiling the race,” Diomedes continues. “Achilles thinks he’s supposed to win because of divine right, so he took this personally. I just don’t get it. He sinks the team and yours too probably, allowing asshole Hector and Paris to win, just because he won’t place first personally. It’s just insane.”

“It’s really Agamemnon’s fault,” Patroclus says. His words come out with more force than he intended. “First of all, what’s a team owner getting so down into the weeds for? Also, he should’ve known Achilles’s pride would get in the way of conceding a win to you. Yes, I know you’re on the same team,” Patroclus says before Diomedes can protest. “You’re looking at this from a team point of view. That’s not how Achilles thinks. That’s not why he’s here.”

[anotheroceanid]

Achiles: Fuck, what happened to Odysseus' skin?

Patroclus: He had an affair with the Athenide and sired a child on her

Achiles: Wasn't she a maiden goddess? So she cursed him for taking her virginity?

Patroclus: Yes, but she wasn't one that swore to be an eternal maiden like her mother. No, she didn't curse him, the two of them get along quite well

Achiles: So why does Odysseus look like that and why does that have to do with Athenide?

Patroclus: He looks like that because the god of the sun apparently has a grudge against lovers of the Athenide

Achilles: And what the Athenide thinks of that?

Patroclus: she thinks Odysseus just passed off another god, she's a bit dense about some things.

Agamemnon: WE COULD BE WINNING THIS WAR IN A DAY BUT HE REFUSES TO SLEEP WITH HER AGAIN AAAAAA

[jewishdainix]

My thoughts on paris the musical 💛 (spoilers!)

Stuff I liked:

The characterization!

When it comes to illiad interpitations I don't usually like it when Helen falls in love with Paris - here it works and its in large part of the characterization. Helen is aware and smart and contenplative. She isn't made into a "Strong Female Character" but neither is she made the dumb pretty face. And paris is a fool! She calls him a fool! They are still in love with eachother. Like I can't explain how well the creators managed to balance these traits that should contradict eachother! But they work so well in this.

Menelaus regreting going after helen and seeking revenge when he sees she loved paris. It did the characters and how they were presented well.

Another thing is helen being a "human counterpart" of aphrodite. Chilling.

I have to write a part about achilles and patroclus's characterizations. They are not what I expected, but I fell abseloutly in love with them! Achilles being cocky, patroclus being loud (WHOS SHOUTING?) just sitting at the side draped on eachother making comments. It was incredible. It makes the closer momente between them, like patroclus telling achilles he knows about the child inside him BECAUSE HE WAS THERE WHEN ACHILLES WAS JUST A CHILD, BECAUSE HE WAS A CHILD WITH HIM, hit so hard and be so fascinating. Same with when patroclus is talkign to agamemnon.

Cassandra. Enough said.

The music!

So fucking good. I love rock operas so much. I did have a bit of a hard time adjusting to the sound, since I don't listen to music from that time period much, like. At all. And there were dome songs I had to skip but it was soooo good. So fucking good.

PARIS, YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. Just. Fucking everything about cassandra. I swear my thoughts are more coherent than this. I swear. Cassandra's parts are sooo briliant. I can't even put those thoughts down. Its so good. Honestly listen to paris the musical if only for cassandra. Fucking hell she and her music are incredible.

Ulysses's small part in 'oh paris' was another thing I'm in love with. I love how it shows his cunning and her warning. It proves her right and I don't think they even talk to eachother in that song but it still manages to paint a dynamic/contrust between them. Fucking incredible.

Most parts about ulysses. Seaks peace and security lonely his road to achieve them . What if I commited murder

The song where the trojans were calling paros a a slut. That was so funny

Hell or high water. I will cry

Stuff I didn't like:

This mudical feels like it has a lot of loose ends with the themes it presents. Like, I really like the theme presented in "a head without a heart" of the importance of both athena and aphrodite . It was mentioned later by ulysses (another cassandra ulysses connection :D!!!) but it was such an interesting idea especially with how it relates to paris.

I wish they explored more all they set up in "charole". It was such a good opening song and I wish its themes appeared more throughout the musical.

I really don't like "love has power". Like as a theme its good but giving it to hector was a fucking waste. He did not deserve this theme, he did not show anything related to it. And furthermore I didn't like how the song sounded.

Adding it back in the finale was ok, but the fact that it was first sung by hector makes it feel so unconnected and weak.

I wish the musical was longer, so itd allow for ecploring the characters more thougrowly. And the music is very good, so it wouldnt hurt to have more songs. I wanted to know the characters better. It should have been longer.

Closing thoughts:

Please listen to this musical!! It is so worth your time and it is so awsome.

[johaerys-writes]

Can I ask you about the scene with Priam?

Before this Achilles is not “sleeping,” bathing, eating, or drinking as part of his mourning process. We see him holding Patroclus’ body, a no-no as the body is “unclean.” (Also, he shaves his head, rolls in dirt, passes out in dirt, etc.) I have seen some takes about how this is part of Achilles’ mourning process for both Pat and himself and how this is him sort of losing the rest of his humanity. Then just-just prior to the Priam scene, Thetis goes to Achilles to tell him to give Priam Hector’s body. Achilles just gives in without any resistance. This is around line 130. She’s like, ‘baby you got to move on from this. Go have something to eat and fuck a woman’ (some of the phrasing here is curious, but it’s not exactly the focus of my question). I always thought this quick acceptance to see Priam was a sign of his deep depression and resignation to his fate.

But then in the scene with Priam he plays proper host. He’s eating and drinking. Then he (debatable imo) goes off to fuck Briseis. It’s like he is literally doing what his mother told him to do. So why the switch from rejecting human customs and needs to engaging in “normal” behavior? As you mentioned, these old stories function differently and don’t exactly have characters arcs with lessons learned. So like wtf is going on? What are we supposed to do with this information?

No disrespect here, but sometimes I think these reversal scenes (which happen multiple times) are just one of Homer’s co-authors/editors going off and doing their own thing and there’s really no hidden meaning at all.

Okay so first of all, I think the notion of Homer's "editors" tampering with the text is a fairly popular one in some circles, I have heard a few different versions of it and I'm not sure I agree or disagree. Most classicists whose work I've read so far, and who work predominantly with Homer, tend to take the Iliad and Odyssey at face value and to automatically assume that the works are the way Homer/whoever wrote them intended them to be. And this is the way I myself engage with the Homeric works, because I think once you go "oh that part here is nonsense, it has probably been changed by those nebulous editors" then you're so much more likely to pick and choose what you like and draw your own conclusions and I don’t think that's fair to the work and the extensive body of work dealing with that work. Ykwim? So let's just say that the Iliad as a whole, and the part you highlighted in particular, are in the fact the way the original epic is meant to be.

The last few books of the Iliad, in my opinion, are the breakdown of Achilles' character. In the beginning, despite his anger and resentment towards Agamemnon, we still see him put together and civil with everyone during the embassy scene, and then again when he speaks with Patroclus, arms him and sends him forth to fight. Then, after Patroclus dies, he loses the plot and goes on his rampage, where his grace, respect and courtesy even towards his enemies fly right out the window. Even after he kills Hector and drags him around, he finds no peace. He refuses to eat, drink or bathe and still yearns and cries for Patroclus. But then, after he sees Patroclus' shade at the beach, is where the second most important change comes about if you ask me; this is when Achilles seems to wholeheartedly accept his death. We have Patroclus' funeral, then the funeral games, where Achilles seems to once again find his nobility and grace, as well as showcase how adept he is at diplomacy and handling the other warchiefs' pettiness and arrogance. Even with Agamemnon he is generous and polite, not exhibiting any resentment towards him.

But there's something different about that scene compared to all the others imo: there is not much of the energy, fire and determination we would see earlier, even when he was grieving. He gives away so much of his treasure too; my friend Baejax and I have often talked about this scene and how it feels like Achilles is giving away his wealth because he has no need for it, since he'll be dying soon anyway. This is a man that has fully accepted that hard behind glory rides death, and that it will be coming swiftly for him.

And this is how I've always seen the meeting with Priam, tbh. For me personally, that scene has always been about grief, mortality and the cost of glory (which is the most important commodity in the Iliad universe) and a meditation on the suffering which unites mankind. Achilles talks about his homeland and the father he has left behind whom he will never again see, about the pain he has caused Priam and his people, about the gods and the ultimate lack of choice that humans have. Men must suffer, he says, and must make others suffer in a world without justice.

So for me it isn’t so much Achilles embracing again the human customs he had rejected, but instead fully acknowledging the reality of his position and resigning himself to it. I don't think that Achilles "plays" the host, so much as he extends his hospitality to Priam (which, again, very important ideal in the Iliad, it's where the Trojan war started in a way. With Paris violating the Achaean's hospitality and stealing Helen), acknowledges Priam's suffering, and acknowledges how instrumental he has been in said suffering. In that scene, killer and victim become one, and with the insight into each other’s condition comes compassion. And I think that's a powerful statement, and perhaps the most enduring in the Iliad. Soon after that, the Trojans bury Hector, which foreshadows and mirrors' Achilles' funeral as well. This "double funeral" completes the Iliad, and its overarching tragedy.

Now. The thing is that Achilles is a really divisive personality to begin with, and the scene with Priam even more so. He isn’t easy to categorise or analyse, and depending on the lens through which one sees his actions and behaviours, the interpretation could change greatly. Rachel Bespaloff in her commentary On the Iliad (which I absolutely loathe and want to tear in little pieces and burn LOL) says that "to rid himself of troublesome responsibility Achilles ducks behind fatality" during the Priam scene, and that his words to the old king are "scandalous behaviour". If you ask me, this take completely ignores Achilles' own suffering and rejects his role in the Iliad as the idealistic, honourable and rigid in his honour and beliefs young hero who almost completely loses his humanity BECAUSE of the ugliness and pettiness of war, because of that suffering, because of his own grief, because of injustice, because of bad leadership, because violence simply begets violence. And it also completely ignores the larger and overarching idea in the Iliad that death and glory, suffering and good fortune go hand in hand. And that this doesn't only apply to good and noble Priam and Hector, but also (you guessed it) to Achilles, in this final scene which is a moment of shared humanity between "enemies" and one of the most poignant in the epic.

Anyway. To conclude this tangent, no, I do not believe that Achilles simply does what his momma tells him to do, nor does he wine and dine Priam for the hell of it. I believe that this is the most depressed, resigned and desolate we see Achilles in the entire poem, a man simply awaiting his death with nothing really to look forward to in life, but who still retains his humanity and treats the people around him with the dignity and respect they deserve.

I hope this answered your question!

[menelaiad]

fucks me up how menelaus is the one who escapes the curse and agamemnon is there to witness it.

like everyone in the house of atreus (atreus down, because this is when the curse gets like ... re...cursed) is defined by an act of violence to a family member/loved one that is caused by or committed by them (i say this because thyestes is a grey area. he rapes his daughter which leads to her suicide so that's .... that's enough tbh. he sucks for that)

except menelaus.

and i mean an event that is well documented. that is recorded and that defines their life. examples: atreus killing his nephews and feeding them to his brother, agamemnon killing his daughter, aegisthus killing his uncle and then his cousin and orestes killing his mother. these are DEFINING moments in these characters stories. their stories are incomplete without them.

i added this point cause people will say: menelaus started the war (which he did in a way. i dont dispute that) but that's not his moment. menelaus is often lost in the narrative of the trojan war. that's not HIS moment if you will. (besides the iliad is about achilles, menelaus' moment wouldn't be in that).

menelaus' moment comes AFTER troy. when he's encouraged to kill helen. THIS will be his defining moment of violence that secures his place in this family and drags him down with them.

and he doesn't do it.

and i don't think he ever intended to. menelaus is so DISTANCED from the curse by this choice/decision that he doesn't. even. die. he never actually dies. never mind has a nice life, lives to a ripe old age, dies calmly in his bed etc. etc. he just doesn't die - now that just ain't the cursed house of atreus way.

now. here's where aga comes in. i think aga knew iphigenia was his 'moment'. like he knew once he'd done that. he was no better than his father and uncle etc. (i think it's why he goes downhill over the course of the war and we get a lot in the iliad about him refusing to go home empty handed. he didn't kill his daughter and throw himself on the sacrificial altar of this curse for NOTHING and also why he goes to death so easily in the tragedies yknow? he just walks into the jaws of death. knowing its coming. fully accepting it. and. honestly? believing he deserves it) BUT the possibility that he sees menelaus throw his moment away and refuse it.

i cannot imagine the peace that must bring agamemnon. to have protected this brother through shit after shit. through exile. atreus. thyestes. aegithus. a war. and then to see him separate himself from it all. aga sees that menelaus is no longer bound by all this. menelaus is going to be safe. and perhaps that's another reason he goes to death so easily. he has nothing left. he cannot rebuilt what he had with clytemnestra. as far as he's concerned orestes is dead and so is iphigenia. (elektra is locked up at this point im sure? im sure cly and aeg keep her prinsoner so he probably doesnt even know where she is) and menelaus is safe. there's nothing really left for aga at this point.

and aga and menelaus part on bad terms? they part on bad terms and never see each other again and their lives take such different paths? the story of these two brothers is something that is so personal to me.

[patrochillesvibes]

O and I have an other question how do you think Achilles will react once he finds out about the fact that Patroclus had slept Deidameia. Because I do believe Patroclus haven’t to Achilles about it .

<3 <3 <3

Ah, the single plot point in TSoA I disagree with.

🎵How do you solve a problem like Pyrrhus🎶

So if we’re all gonna suck Homer’s dick, then let’s all get on the same page that Deidamia isn’t in the Iliad. Or the Odyssey. You also gotta be careful with any source material mentioning Deidamia as most of this content was part of a smear campaign by the Italians coughDantecough.

Pyrrhus is such a random character if you think about it. Achilles was not married, otherwise Agamemnon wouldn’t keep trying to get him to marry his seemingly endless supply of daughters. Pyrrhus isn’t labeled as a bastard, but what else could he be? Achilles would’ve had to have knocked up some chick.

And isn’t it strange that Achilles would do this? I don’t want to say it’s not in character, but it seems strange compared to his prophecy-focused life. (Also, Patroclus and Achilles don’t have little bastards running around the camp, so do we really believe they’re fucking the slaves? If they’re fucking the slaves, where are the babies? Birth control and abortions were not that good in 1250 BCE. But I’m getting super off topic now.)

This is why I personally believe Achilles found a random baby, adopted it, and had Mother feed him ambrosia.

I’m very passionate about ^this headcanon of mine.

Now back to TSoA…

First off, remember that Patroclus is a LIAR. He is not just full of bologna, he’s made out of bologna. He wants us to believe he’s a feminist? Anti-war? A doctor? Achilles is perfect? Patroclus PLEASE!

But you have to respect the lies because TSoA is essentially an autobiography and lying is like the first law of autobiography writing.

I’d also like to point out the clever literary trick at the end of TSoA. The book ends with Patroclus and Thetis chatting about Achilles. She says “Speak, then” to get Patroclus to share his memories. Thus, the book is not so much an account of his life, but essentially all the memories he had to share with her. He wants to show her how glorious her son was, the side she never got to see, the human nature she shunned, Achilles’ mortality. So of course he’s going to highlight the good, even enhance it as well as downplay or even lie about the bad.

But back to your question…

What happened at Skyros? Patroclus wants us to believe a lot of non-con was going on. I low-key have a very messed up theory about what actually happened and why it happened, but I don’t want to get into it rn a blogger on here might be unhappy bcs of a related ask I coincidentally just sent them. So for simplicity's sake, let’s assume that the non-con did indeed happen. I think he told Achilles a half-truth. Something to the effect of mentioning having comforted Deidamia and given her an official farewell (of the husbandly kind) on his behalf. He used a lot of double-meaning words to allow Achilles to interpret as he pleased.

And how did he interpret what Patroclus told him? First he was relieved that he would not have to deal with her again. Then he was his usual dumb blonde self (Patroclus calls this 'trusting', Pat pls) and took the words at face value. And I wouldn't blame him for it. When traumatic things happen to you, you do what you can to cope.

And please don’t take this as victim blaming or non-con denial, but the last lines of Chapter 13 never sat quite right with me.

Sorry to keep harping on the lying. Part of me thinks the scene with Deidamia was either a hallucination-false memory sequence to reinforce that patrochilles is 2-bodies-1-soul -what happens to Achilles happens to Pat; and part of me thinks this was Pat’s sly way of showing Thetis how she hurt Achilles by enabling the non-con. Sadly, we'll never know the truth, so it's up to you what you want to believe.

I hope this rambling rant answered your question. Thank you for the ask! I LOVE LOVE LOVE The Song of Achilles and am capable of ranting and raving about it for hours at a time 😘

[table-top-romulan-playing-games]

Chryses: hello, king Agamemnon, i have brought adequate reverence and offers to you and wish to plead for the safe return of my daughter please.

All of the other kings and generals: Yeah, he brought sufficient offers, you should give her back.

Agamemnon: No. She's my concubine and im sending her back to my palace where i will have her adorn my couch every night, fuck you old man :/

Chryses: -Goes back to the temple of Apollo where he is the priest- pls save my daughter.

Apollo: -Agrees and sets a plague onto the Acheans bc wtf Agamemnon-

----- later -----

Achilles: Hey, the prophet we've had with us since we before we even declared war, the one you supposedly dont like bc of the prophecy he told about Artemis wanting a Sacrifice, says he knows why there is a plague upon us rn.

Agamemnon: fine, he may speak.

The prophet: you will protect me from his anger wont you achilles?

Achilles: sure, he shouldnt get angry with you anyway, ur just the messenger and it was something we fucked up so...

Prophet: ok, well the plague is here bc you wouldnt give back the daughter of Chryses when he asked you nicely and gave you offering, so he asked Apollo to smite you and Apollo agreed you fucked up, so now if you want to fix it you have to give her back, plus reverence to Apollo, and you cannot ask for anything in return :/

Agamemnon: THATS BULLSHIT! SHE IS MY PRIZE I WILL NOT LET HER GO!

Achilles: I think you should listen to him, you already have 6x the amount of treasure and war prizes than anyone else, and if you do, then upon the next raid, we shall garauntee 3x what you had recieved this raid.

Agamemnon: actually u kno wat fuck u i'll just take Breseis instead since u wanna take mine away :/

Achilles:....

Achilles: listen here you lazy ass petty bitch, were it not for the goddess Athena holding me back i would run you through with my sword, but she gave me permission to lash at you with my tongue. You have done nothing but order people around and sit on your ass, you have done the least and have gotten the most reward where as i and mine have done the most and get scrap for reward, and the one actual war prize i had recieved fairly you wish to take away bc you want to be petty that a god is forcing you to give back one of dozens of concubines??? That we all agreed you should have gave back and refused, causing this plague in first place.

Agamemnon: U brought this doom singing prophet, that i didnt bother replacing 10 years ago, into the council tent, so, yes.

Achilles: well then fuck u, im about to become the demigod of petty, eat my ass

[baejax-the-great]

Hi, I saw on one of your ao3 comments that you think Homers' Achilles is on the spectrum. This is a really interesting idea to me, but I don't know that much about autism - could you elaborate on why you think that? (Also, I think all of your fics are amazing ☺️)

Autism as a word and diagnosis did not exist in ancient Greece, and I have no idea if there would have been a similar concept about it (doubt it) or if more likely people with certain autistic traits would have been considered to have a certain type of personality. So for me to say that Homer deliberately wrote Achilles as "autistic" is a little tongue in cheek.

That said, reading the Iliad I did have a moment of "Ohhhh, dude's autistic I get it." Some people might look at my reasoning and say, "well, that could be a whole other thing with these other reasons," and that's fair. This is just how it came across to me and why.

Sense of justice/fairness. This is one of the more obscure autistic traits (that often gets misunderstood and shit upon by people), but it's how the book begins, so I'll start here. Autistic people are more likely to learn and follow rules to a T. This gets rolled into the trait of "rigid thinking" and has been related to autistic people's preference for solid routines. To think about where you lie with this trait, one example is the "walk" signal at a crosswalk. Some people jaywalk when the road is very clear and no one is around. Some people jaywalk when the road ISN'T clear because they don't give a fuck. And some people will wait for that light to turn white no matter what because that's what you are supposed to do and there are rules (although culture/country of origin will also affect how much relevance traffic lights have in your life).

This is a rule, but it has little do to with justice. So to figure out where you stand in terms of justice sensitivity, another metric is how angry you feel when you watch someone cut in line and not get punished for it. Some of us will sigh and move on with our life because dicks are everywhere, whatever, and some people will have a harder time letting go because this person broke a rule in an obviously unfair way, and they should be punished for that.

This trait does not mean that autistic people have a better sense of what justice is or what rules/laws are "just." That is all very subjective. But this trait does result in a stronger negative reaction to seeing those rules/laws violated.

Such as rage.

Achilles fits the bill here in both in terms of rigid thinking and his sense of justice. His reputation in the Greek tradition is as someone who was very educated. In fact, he is the most educated with regards to law and religion than the rest of the Achaeans thanks to his time with Chiron. More than that, he actually cared about what he was taught and was considered kind of a stick-in-the-mud in terms of believing that the armies should follow the rules and customs of their people at all times and that violating their own laws was bad, even if you really, really wanted to bang a hot chick.

When Agamemnon decides to take Briseis, he is breaking a Rule. The common interpretation of what happens here is that he has violated Achilles' pride and honor in doing so, and Achilles loses his shit. That's valid. To me it read a little differently. I mean, for one, Achilles is 100% correct in the first book. Agamemnon pissed off the gods in a way he shouldn't have bringing plague on everyone, and how does he solve this? By agreeing to do the thing Achilles told him to do to solve it and then immediately violating their customs to steal from Achilles, bringing down a plague of "Achilles is not going to help you anymore."

Achilles cries to his mom that he wants the gods to fuck over the Greeks to prove Achilles right, which is deeply immature, but also really makes sense to me. Like, Agamemnon did this shitty, illegal, rules-breaking thing, and he needs to feel the consequences of that action. Achilles isn't a god who can bring down a plague, but his mommy is, so get fucked, Agamemnon. It's Zeus time.

During the time Achilles is out of the fighting, he is routinely called hard-hearted, stubborn, and other words to indicate he will not be swayed, which again speaks to his rigidity of understanding how things should be done.

The Way Achilles Talks About His Emotions. Achilles very clearly states what he is feeling throughout the book, and he often restates it. We get it, bro. You're mad. And then sad. Really, really sad. While this is almost definitely for the audience to understand his feelings and just how deep they run, Homer also could have just told us outright what he was thinking without having Achilles say it out loud repeatedly. It also felt to me that Achilles talks about his feelings far more often and bluntly than other characters do, but again this could be because the story revolves around his 'rage.'

Regardless, even if it was purely for audience benefit, this is a behavior I have noticed with my adult ND friends, which is basically after a childhood feeling confused by what other people around them are doing or why they are reacting to things in a certain way, they have a strategy of very bluntly expressing themselves and where they are at in this situation. It can be far easier than trying to follow the subtleties of NT culture and just get whatever issue it is out in the open. Saying to someone "I am angry at you" can come off as overly aggressive and blunt depending on context, but it cuts to the heart of the matter. We can compare this with Odysseus, who does not express any very deep emotions at all in the Iliad (other than the fact that Thersites should shut the fuck up, anyway), presumably because that's nobody else's business.

The Embassy. Achilles' point to Odysseus that this entire war was started over a man stealing a woman is so correct and so ignored. He looks at this situation and says: Paris stole Helen, and Agamemnon rallied all the Achaeans to come make war with Troy. Agamemnon steals Briseis, and I'm meant to... keep fighting for him? In what way does this make sense?

Everyone around him sees it from a completely different perspective, basically that Achilles got angry over a girl. To Achilles this is not what it is about at all. And I'm with him on this. If stealing a woman is a sin egregious enough for thousands of Greeks to spend 10 years attempting to sack a city, then it is the same amount of egregious for Agamemnon to take Briseis and he's lucky Achilles didn't kill him immediately and sack Argos. He's getting off easy, which Achilles tells him.

Reading Odysseus lay out his argument followed by Achilles cutting him down with that bit of logic was like, yeah, I'm with Achilles, I don't even think he's being stubborn I just think he's right.

In the embassy chapter, Achilles also has his famous line about despising men who say one thing but mean another. Being very truthful and having difficulty noticing lies is another common trait of autism, and it would make sense for Achilles to find the dishonesty of his colleagues deeply annoying.

Old British scholars called him a sociopath. This might seem like a weird one, but I'm adding it into evidence. When I read the Iliad, I see Achilles as a very emotional person. Given that half the book is about his grief over Patroclus, I find calling him incapable of caring about others incredibly bizarre. But in addition to determining that these scholars who wrote these batshit essays have never once in their life had a friend, much less a friend that they loved, this kind of fits with how a certain type of old-fashioned scholar understands autism. I've actually been at neuroscience talks with crusty old assholes who talk about how autistics and orphans are incapable of empathy, and then use evidence that really just says to me they express empathy in a different way. (Yes, orphans. For real. A real talk I went to in like 2015. Did you know that orphans don't have feelings and don't care about the feelings of others. /s) Add to the old British tradition of their feral private school kids (which I believe they call public school? idk those assholes in blazers, you know the ones) literally caning each other for being smaller, weaker, or just different, and this to me is solid evidence that Achilles is neurodivergent and unwittingly awoke the bloodlust in these old (dead) bastards.

Speech Patterns. Not being able to read Ancient Greek, I can't actually say much about this one, but multiple scholars have commented that the way Achilles speaks in the Iliad is different to all the others. He has a unique way of speaking. Again, this is not necessarily an autistic trait, but it is common for autistic people to have different speech patterns than NT people, so it's more just a "hmmm, maybe" than actual evidence.

I feel like I'm forgetting other little things, but I'd have to fully reread the Iliad with this in mind to jog my memory, and maybe one day I will. TLDR; Achilles has a very rigid way of thinking and an uncommon way of expressing his emotions.

And as always, autism is a spectrum. Anything I've written about here isn't necessarily true of any autistic person out in the world.

[gemsofgreece]

“Certain” foreigners: Modern Greeks have nothing in common with Ancient Greeks

Meanwhile, in Iliad, Rhapsody I, with no exaggeration:

Calchas: Look there’s a problem, Apollo is angry and you, Agamemnon, have to give the girl to her father to appease the god

Agamemnon: Who gives a shit about the god, why should only I give my prize back, am I the malakas of the gang or what? If you take her from me, I am gonna do the same to someone else, especially that asshole Achilles who people respect and thus must be destroyed

Achilles: WTF son of a bitch (literally) if you take my prize I ‘d rather see all our people die than help you out

A little later in Iliad, also in Rhapsody I:

Achilles: MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Thetis, jumping out of the sea like Harry Potter from the lake in the Goblet of Fire: WHO HURT YOU MY BOY? TELL MOMMY AND I ‘LL CUT THEIR ASS

Achilles: Mom, Agamemnon showed disrespect to me, please persuade Zeus to start killing all the Greeks for revenge

Thetis: Your request sounds totally reasonable, cutie pie, mommy will try her best

Thetis: *flies to Olympus like Superman*

And immediately after, we’re still in Rhapsody I, can you believe?

Thetis: I helped you once Zeus and now you must help me back, it’s not like I helped you out of my good heart without expecting a future payback

Zeus: can you please get the fuck out before Hera sees me talking to someone without her permission?

Thetis: if you don’t grant my baby boy’s wish you assh-

Zeus: okay so you essentially ask me to take another beating from Hera, that’s good, that’s fine, it’s not like I am dead inside already. This woman is obsessed with me I swear, she always points out how everything I do is a mistake. This marriage has been taking years off of my eternity. Anyway okay, I promise, leave now, and some other religion god help me

Hera: Zeus?

Zeus: *shit, shit, shit* Yes Hera, Goddess of Goddesses, only love of my life?

Hera: Did you do things without asking me again, you sly rat?

Zeus: I AM A MAN AND I AM THE HEAD OF THIS MOUNTAIN AND I WILL DO ANYTHING I WANT. SEE, IT’S YOUR FAULT I CAN’T STAND YOUR GRUMPINESS AND HAVE TO LOOK ELSEWHERE FOR SOME JOY, YOU STIFF SHREW, DON’T MAKE ME COME THERE

Hephaestus: oh Mom don’t get sad, this clown of a father is a well known asshole but the fucker is strong and nobody wants to deal with this, okay? So let’s all eat to the point of death if we were mortals and forget about this

*Everyone laughs at him for being disabled*

*After a fight, abuse threats, child accusing the father for neglect, enough food to kill an army and the mocking of their son’s disability, Zeus and Hera go happily to bed together*

Seriously who needs phylogenetic analysis and comparisons of Greek DNA when there’s Iliad’s Rhapsody I, amirite folks

[littlesparklight]

Why do Patrochilles fans always seem to forget about the Trojan women and children do they not matter?

To be fair, there are probably several reasons, and, I'd guess, no matter which other reasons there might be, being uncomfortable with the violence and the cruelty is probably a big reason.

Which is neither strange nor wrong!

But - well. This is about war. War in a society where slavery is a thing and where, specifically, the captives taken are enslaved. If (general) you like an Achaean character in the Trojan war narrative, then your blorbo absolutely has traumatized an unknown number of women personally by killing members of their natal and/or potentially marital family, long before Troy falls. And are, at the very least, using them as slave labour.

And a smaller number of said captive women are serving as personal status objects, including serving in their captor's beds. (And, you clearly don't need to be one of these ~special~ slaves for this to happen either, if circumstances change, as Diomede (the woman Achilles sleeps with/next to the night of the embassy) shows.)

(The discomfort is, presumably, also part of why some people are working overtime in trying to soften and cutiefy the Odysseus-Astyanax situation with ~he saves him~ AUs or just general angst and regret in the moment and milking it afterwards. I had to see "father son duo" in connection with fucking Odysseus and Astyanax a couple days ago, and, ugh. Like, sorry, but even when Odysseus isn't the killer he seems to always come up with/champion the idea! Make your peace with it instead of having Odysseus cry as if he fucking CARES about this one child that he's advocating for murdering. (I would not really think it odd if Odysseus potentially has PTSD from this, but man, the way I've seen it used just makes me pissed off, sorry not sorry. Astyanax is basically just a prop.)

Anyway, ok.

I have no idea if TSoA is actually the most usual way for shippers to get into Patrochilles any more, but it still seems like that? And TSoA works very, very hard to soften and smooth out all and any uncomfortable bits. The Troilus incident doesn't exist, and the Achilles and Patroklos are basically running a ~women's shelter~ and not doing anything questionable with the women with their power or whatever.

If this is where you come into Patrochilles specifically and the Trojan war in general, no wonder you'd like to keep ignoring all the unpleasant bits. Which like. Fine. If they would keep to TSoA, but usually they don't.

The Hades game, too, did its work of presenting a more palatable Achilles. It is post-war, so basically nothing comes up, and the Achilles we get is unexplainedly regret- and shameful over his earlier behaviour and actions. I say unexplainedly not because I couldn't necessarily see this change, but it's not actually shown to us. We're just shown a personality that isn't actually very/at all connected to what those of us who knows the Iliad and the Odyssey have seen.

Even the Odyssey doesn't show us an Achilles who regrets anything of what he did (and he's proud of his son's achievements, even if Odysseus doesn't enumerate them in detail). What Achilles in the Odyssey regrets is being dead, specifically, and he seems rather depressed over being so.

So, again, if you come in to Patrochilles and the Hades game, it's once again easy to just... ignore stuff you don't want to touch on (even more so, since it's (long) post-war, which is undoubtedly a plus, genuinely).

The thing is, though - when you start dipping into the actual Trojan war, even just by reading, say, Achilles' wiki page, especially Troilus is right there. And making jokes (I have seen several) about "what would Achilles need Lesbian women for, Agamemnon, you idiot!!", is just... unpleasant. What are enslaved women used for, huh? Sexuality jokes have no place in this instance, just because someone might be uncomfortable and/or clinging to "Achilles is totally and only gay and doesn't fuck women".

But, tl; dr; no I don't think that, in general, most Patrochilles shippers think the Trojan (and every other woman who was enslaved during these ten years) women and the children matter. They're here for the ship.

And there is not really anything wrong with that, but the way the war (and the women, children etc) are usually dealt with (or not) in the course of that is extremely lacking because it's basically all whitewashed. (And Hektor gets used as some sort of handy ship-obstacle in any way they like to. Leave Hektor alone, damn it.)

[rosquinn]

Hi Roski! I have a question, would you mind to help, please?

Okay, so the other when I was wandering through the shelves of my local library I found our that they have a copy of Madeline's Miller Circe... And I was thinking that maybe I should give it a try? 😅

I know that it's not mythology accurate but as long as the plotline is well-written... Idk maybe I will enjoy in spite of it 🤷🏻‍♀️ Do you is it a good idea?

I just wanted to know if you believe is worth the time or nor

Also, same goes for Achilles's song. They don't have it at the library, but I thought that if I enjoyed Circe I should try it to? 🤔

i used to be a huge madelline miller fan *vaguely gestures at her short story about galatea i still have in my bookshelf for some reason* but i realized she, well, uh, sucks

it's not about her writing, (it's excessively "poetic" and decorated in my opinion but that's subjective) it's that her interpretations are kind of. bad?

i'm gonna elaborate under the cut about why i don't like her (long rant and tw for *mentions of s/a*)

-she victimizes her female main character and makes her go through traumatic experiences to erase and excuse all the bad stuff she's done... "circe turned odysseus' men into pigs bc they tried to assault her" yeah. no. she forced odysseus to sleep with her and turned his men into pigs because she felt like it. i understand you want a feminist badass witch but just. no. she isn't a cute uwu unfairly exiled goddess. what she did to odysseus is sexual abuse.

-she apparently hates women that aren't circe. made thetis, i repeat, our thetis, MOTHER thetis, a homophobic and overprotective mom who wants to kill patroclus in SOA for some reason (wasn't she literally the one who sent patroclus to the war with achilles..... miller..aren't you a classics major..). she did to her what other adaptations do to demeter, basically. and for no reason at all. but i guess her cute baby achilles who is doomed by the narrative can't have a nice mom who let him do whatever he wanted to because that would make him RUDE and EVIL and her character(s) can't have bad qualities. she also made achilles's wife, deidameia, who in some versions is raped by him, a “slut that gets in the way of your gay ship” archetype. she also made her rape achilles for some reason??? and that is fucking horrible

-baby-fied patroclus. he speaks like a stupid teenager girl stereotype in soa and is pretty much a useless human being whose entire personality is simping for achilles. that is not him. he DID fight in the trojan war, he was a SKILLED fighter, not a useless twig, he is described as tall and handsome, he healed some warriors, he is SAVAGE, bro literally broke kebriones's head with a rock in front of his brother and made fun of it??? he tried to climb the walls of troy and conquer it by himself??? he told achilles to stop being a bitch and move his ass??? and then in soa he's a useless piece of shit who DIDN'T EVEN FIGHT IN THE WAR, thinks of himself as weak and was thinking about achilles until the moment he died. sorry to break it to you but his last words in the iliad weren't "omg achilles no😥😥". he threw a whole essay at hector about how he didn't kill shit, it was apollo who beat him and hector's about to get dragged. and when his ghost came back to talk to achilles, it was to tell him to STOP CRYING and KILLING PEOPLE and BURN HIS BODY ALREADY. she completely erased his character. sorry.

-glorified achilles wayyy too much. one thing that i hate about her is how she can't let anyone make mistakes. achilles isn't “noble and doomed by the narrative”. he knew pretty well where he was stepping in and didn't give two shits. he literally says in Iliad book 1 he's there for the mass murder, glory and nothing more. “why would i kill hector what has hector ever done to me” MY ASS. he also was kind of an insufferable bitch in the iliad. i'm tired of people making his decision of stop fighting look “heroic/noble/tragic/etc bc agamemnon is evil” because it was not. he stopped fighting for selfish reasons, treated everyone really bad and let his friends die. also, agamemnon isn't “evil” and achilles isn't “good”. they're both war criminals who act like 8 year olds and kidnap women. every achaean character is a bitch, has killed at least 6 people and enjoyed it. yes. even babyboy patroclus (book 16)

-i'm not even saying this as a person with greek ancestry or a pagan, because i am neither, but her depiction of the gods is TERRIBLE. just what is that whole thing of "gods want mortals to fear them so they worship them"??? that's not even how religion works??? gods can be and in fact are very nice to their worshippers?? why would you villainize cultural figures like that?? and why tf it always gotta be a EVIL FEMALE GODDESS trying to fuck up her main character's life for some reason?? athena wants to kill circe's son in circe and i'm pretty sure they don't even interact in the odyssey?? (maybe they did, i don't remember, but if it happened it was definitely NOT because of that) and why is hermes a manipulator?? and why is ODYSSEUS a manipulator??? you literally sexually assaulted him??? HELLO????

idk, it just feels like mc victimization and random female character villainization (she also put the whole blame of the trojan war on helen because she was “vain” and “selfish”??? didn't she spend the whole iliad blaming herself for the war and wishing to die??)

i don't really like it. it's not a good adaptation

also i'm not the best person to expand on this topic because i am not a gay man/mlm/nblm but some people on tumblr have explained why tsoa is basically mlm fetish and wattpad fujoshi looking crap and they do have a point (the relationship is so stereotyped tbh) so i encourage you to read their posts. i don't have them rn but i can dm them to you later if you want

AND finally, most people in her fanbase can't separate a wattpad fanfic (because that's what tsoa is) from the original text and think tsoa and circe are just like what homer wrote. “hector didn't know it was patroclus” HE FUCKING DID PATROCLUS KILLED 20 PEOPLE IN FRONT OF HIM IT'S UNDERSTANDABLE “patroclus died bc he wasn't a skilled warrior” HE HAS THE SECOND HIGHEST KILL COUNT IN THE WHOLE ILIAD AND WAS FULL OF HUBRIS. HE DIED BECAUSE HE TRIED TO FISTFIGHT A GOD “deidameia raped achilles” “thetis is homophobic” “odysseus is evil” “it was all helen's fault” “circe did nothing wrong” “athena is bad” no (and they act like not shipping patrochilles makes you homophobic which is. cmon. i personally think they def had something going on but it's never explicitly stated and you can't act like it is)

ik i got too aggressive but it's just bad imo, if you want to enjoy a good iliad/odyssey adaptation go play hades or listen to epic the musical or even play limbus company because i swear lc's odysseus, a literal old woman who committed identity fraud, is at least 80 times more in character than miller's babyboys

ADDITION: no i'm not going to dismember you for liking tsoa or circe. this is just a personal opinion. enjoy whatever you want i'm just a little guy and i can't stop you. have fun!

[theseventhoffrostfall]

I've talked before about people being unable to get outside their bubble (usually, granted, in a warfighting context.) Well, I'm informed of the recent translation of the Iliad, which in addition to making the language hip and modern to the very cusp of making Agamemnon say "no cap", strives to recharacterize the story as a tale of Achilles learning to check his privilege. That's genuinely the translator's takeaway from a millennia-old blood-soaked cultural epic.

Like, some kind of long elaborate breakdown would be a waste of time. This is the sort of thing academics do and then wonder why no one takes academia seriously until next month when they do or say something dumber, ad nauseum. They will not be dissuaded. My only comment I can make is the same I direct towards people who engage with fiction, mythology, folklore, or any story humans tell each other and immediately start looking for who they can slot into the right insipid character archetypes and write fanfiction about them fucking. That question is "aren't you tired of this?" Like, aren't you just bored? If you force every peg you come across in life into the round hole that is the brain-poisoning circlejerk-polished lens by which you view the world, you have to just find it all monotonous, right?