#tsoa meta

[pyramidofmice]

Honestly I think the core of Achilles's character in The Song of Achilles is that he loves to learn ("He is surprising" 35/his eagerness to hear stories from Odysseus and Diomedes) and grow (pushing himself to beat his own records by having Patroclus count him on the beach, etc) and overall he thrives on the energy and movement of mortal life. This is in comparison to the godly life of eternally staying the same age. If he became immortal, he'd never grow anymore. He'd have challenges to rise up to and meet, but Miller's construction of the godly realm has it so a god's character is incredibly stagnant. Circe and Thetis grow as people, but only as a result of getting entangled with mortal lives.

When Achilles makes the decision to die at Troy, he sets his sights on immortality as payment for his forfeit future. He chooses to die young rather than age into obscurity. But in his desperate clawing for fame (and thus immortality), he casts off all the mortal parts of himself that made him happy. He stops wanting to learn about others ("It’s simpler if they just remember me" 247). He sees success in battle but doesn't push himself to progress the war: he avoids Hector, and thus avoids fate. He sticks himself in a repetitive cycle of killing and prizes that stretches on for 10 years.

He fell in love with the life he had on Pelion. He wants to keep it forever, to gain immortality so he never loses his youth or his most beloved. But on Pelion, he and Patroclus were learning from Chiron and growing into adulthood. Immortality is antithetical to the underlying nature of those things he seeks to keep: the striving involved with growing, the surprise of the unexpected, the ability to share these experiences with another.

The person he becomes at Troy is distanced from Patroclus even before losing him to death. Chapter Thirty, where Achilles sends Patroclus off in his armor, is riddled with parallels to things Achilles once said lovingly. Take this exchange from their time on Pelion: "They never let you be famous and happy...I’m going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it...Because you’re the reason" (98). At Troy, it turns into this: He held up his hand. “Swear to me,” he said. “Swear to me that if you go, you will not fight them.” “...Yes.” I pressed my hand to his (309).

When Achilles is deciding between his two dooms, Patroclus thinks this: I had seen the joy he took in his own skill, the roaring vitality that was always just beneath the surface (158). Achilles thought that he would avoid losing this joy by choosing a young death. Instead, he loses his desire for both godly and mortal life, even while his body remains strong. Maybe if he'd acted differently at Troy, he could've brought the goodness of his mortal life into his godly one. But he gets so caught up in the fear of losing what he loves to his enemies that he doesn't realize he's robbed himself.

[bassiascoparia]

LET'S ENJOY GREEK MYTH RETELLINGS AND STORIES BUT NOT TAKE ALL OF THEM SERIOUSLY

You know, I really have to say this.

I don't think that Greeks, Hellenistic Pagans and other people who know Greek Mythology would be as frustrated as they are today if people DIDN'T TAKE MODERN SOURCES DEPICTING GREEK MEDIA AS ALWAYS ACCURATE.

Bear with me now.

All right, so, we all know about Percy Jackson.

And PJO was basically the Greek God make or break of its time and it broke the Greek Gods. Greeks and Hellenistic Pagans had the unfortunate experience of being bombarded with false, incorrect interpretations and thoughts about their deities.

And we have to remember here that to these Hellenistic Pagans, their gods are as sacred to them as God is to Christians. Maybe they wouldn't kill people over their gods, an added bonus, but we must respect the fact that they worship the gods and we must be respectful of Greek Gods when interacting with them.

See, I'm not saying that you can't be lighthearted. You can joke around and all that-it's just that actually hating and condemning the Greek Gods shouldn't be done when you're interacting with their worshippers.

Now that I'm done with that, well, Rick Riordan fucked up with Greek Mythology big time. Making Athena have children, HIS MISOGYNY. THERE ARE ENTIRE TAGS DEDICATED TO RICK'S MISOGYNY, NOT JUST OF HIS FEMALE CHARACTERS BUT OF ACTUAL ANCIENT GREEK GODDESSES. If I did a whole essay on his misogyny, I'd have to make multiple posts.

Rick done fucked up with them. I do not have to be the first person to tell you that.

HOWEVER, I am obligated to say that any author is freely able to portray the Greek Gods as they want (unfortunately at times).

And so Rick is free to interpret them how he likes.

Let's also remember that Rick thought terribly of the Gods and their worshippers when he was writing Percy Jackson and the other series.

Of course, he HAS changed for the better. Now he's more respectful of Pagans and has apologised, which is nice, but I just thought I'd let you know.

See, now we can accept and criticise Rick's writing, but before-

Well, before, it was absolutely awful for Greeks and Hellenistic Pagans. I mean, it's still awful, but it was more awful back then because almost nobody criticised Percy Jackson about depicting Greek Gods terribly. Everyone said that Greek Gods were American and belonged to America-ugh, that was horrible. It's absolutely appalling to do that, no less to Greeks themselves. People ranted about how horrible the gods were.

And I mean yes, the Greek Gods could be awful by modern standards, but we need to remember two things-

The Greek Gods were based on an ANCIENT SOCIETY with DIFFERENT MORAL STANDARDS. Judging them by modern moral standards isn't going to do anything.

The actions of the gods were SYMBOLIC, NOT LITERAL.

a) Artemis' cruelty towards humans? That's the cruelty of nature towards him. Artemis was a nature goddess and she hunted and resided in the wild.

b) Dionysus being kind and charming but also mad and ruthless at times? Well, that's what wine does. It can make people funny and charming to a point, but it also drives people mad and makes them violent.

c) Hades kidnapping Persephone? Well, Hades represents death, and that's what death does-it rips children from their parents' arms. Also, it signifies the fact that daughters and mothers did not have a say in their marriage, the father could give the girl away to any man in those times. Demeter actually being able to get Persephone back was a comfort to grieving mothers.

d) Zeus cheating on Hera multiple times?

There are multiple explanations for this one.

First, kings and princes often claimed to be descendants of Zeus, so Zeus was said to have many affairs with royal mortal women so that their claims to divine lineage could be accurate.

Second, Zeus' rain represented fecundity and fertility. As I said above, the actions of the gods are symbolic and they represent their domains, so he had multiple affairs and loads of children to signify his fertility.

Third, the Greek Gods were based on Ancient Greek society where multiple men took concubines and lovers. And Zeus did this too, because he was a king!

e) Hera punishing the lovers and bastards? That's what queens did to some concubines for revenge, since they couldn't take it out on the king.

It's all either symbolic or based on Ancient Greece. The gods that humanity created were based on those times, and they were created millennia ago, when things were different in nearly every way possible.

Anyway, what I'm trying to tell you is that we're allowed to have fun with these stories and retellings that include Greek Mythology, but if you really want correct information on Greek gods, go and read the myths and the compositions of Ancient Greek poets and playwrights (Homer, Hesiod, etc).

Because many people, when reading these modern retellings and the like, think that they are actually real mythological information and accordingly spew nonsense.

People call Apollo 'Asspollo' and harass his worshippers because of one incorrect comic that came out in 2018. Apollo never raped Persephone.

And people also view famous figures like Odysseus and Achilles incorrectly because of incorrect translations that don't correctly capture the original and CERTAIN RETELLINGS (cough-Madeline Miller-COUGH)

And there are so many more examples I could give, but then this would be too long to post.

See, it's not that the writers completely rip the original lore out. They keep a lot of it, but they also add in some incorrect information. And sometimes this isn't that bad or malicious, it's just incorrect.

So if you're not sure about whether something in a retelling or story depicting Greek Gods is true, you should search it up online or ask someone who knows.

Because Greeks and Hellenistic Pagans are constantly frustrated at how their gods are portrayed and that everyone just takes the retellings as mythologically correct.

TLDR Greek mythology retellings can be fun for you to read but don't take all of the info in them as mythologically correct. You can be lighthearted about the Greek Gods but please don't actually loathe or mock them with others who believe in them and worship them. If you're not sure about info in a retelling or story, then search it up or ask someone you know.

There are multiple blogs on tumblr who can tell you more information about the actual Greek Gods and they're pretty nice about it too, so don't be too afraid.

[crosswire]

tired of seeing the same 5 YA books* in the notes so here are 5 books that actually made me break down in tears and lose sanity:

Pachinko - Min Jin Lee a family saga of korean immigrants to japan. i wish i could say more but i read it years ago and can't remember the specifics, just that it left me a hollow shell for like a month. CWs: a lot of xenophobia and mental health issues, including suicide.

The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller queer retelling/reading of the Iliad through the relationship of achilles/patroclus. this one's pretty popular online and it deserves to be. CWs: major character death (obviously), war

The Carnivorous Lamb - Augustin Gomez-Arcos an allegory for fascist Spain, and the romantic/sexual relationship between two brothers as the metaphorical resistance to it. also critiques Catholicism. this book is where the infamous tumblr line "whether you come as lover or executioner, I am ready to receive you" comes from. CWs: incest, CSA, child neglect

Strange the Dreamer duology - Laini Taylor ok now i WILL recommend a YA book, but it definitely treads the line of adult fantasy and it's nothing like acotar/shadow & bone/etc. split dual perspective, the first follows a quest format of an orphan who was raised as a monk and the daughter of a god who is trapped in a home full of ghosts. there's a lot of untapped queer-trans readings of this book i think. CWs: non-graphic mass rape of women and other typical god-pantheon disgustingness.

Flowers in the Attic - V.C. Andrews HERE ME OUT....before you go, josiah why are you recommending us two incest books, please remember that i am a normal person (english major) with normal interests (gothic fiction). for those of you who somehow don't know what this is about, a mother locks her four children in their rich grandparents' attic while she tries to get back in her father's good graces--and money. the children come of age in this attic among years of abuse. CWs: incest, rape, child abuse.

*DO read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. the notes are right about that one

what is the best book you’ve ever read in ur entire life i need a book that will completely ruin my life hello please

[aliciavance4228]

I feel that your feelings are not unfounded regarding "one of the worst Tsoa fans" (— harsh 😂) Many months ago I found myself quite perturbed because of what went on in the replies of this post*. Now, it seems that most of the conversation is gone. This post* by OP addresses it. I thought it so strange.

Although, concerning that account, I believe some credit is due. Not everyone they've called out for racism was wrongly accused.

*1. https://www.tumblr.com/cacaesar/754753665619853312/classics-online-rant-collection

*2. https://www.tumblr.com/cacaesar/754757820439724032/asking-someone-what-their-credentials-are-to-speak

While I do understand the desire of having more diversity and inclusivity (especially when Greek Mythology DOES have different figures who are either implied or stated to be foreigners such as Andromeda, Memnon, Cadmus, Calypso etc.), I also believe that some of the people from the "Pin of Shame" actually made some fair points to some extent when it comes to race/ethnicity related subjects and shouldn't be automatically labeled as racist for that, let aside nazi, which has a very specific meaning and holds extremely destructive connotations. I think this could've been done in a way more mature and understanding way by asking them on their blog or messaging in private in order to talk about this issue if they indeed wrote something inappropriate or disturbing rather than straight-up pinning a list with their usernames written with a font that can be seen from space.

That being said, people have to acknowledge the differences between ancient sources and Retellings/Fanfictions. While Greek Mythology is indeed a product of hundreds of years of writing and strory-telling and many myths and figures suffered more or less significant changes or completely alternative fates over the years, all of them were ment to reflect the religious, social, cultural and sometimes even political reality of those ancient times. This is part of the reason why inserting a completely modern mentality inside these myths oftenly fails - because you simply cannot apply modern ideologies on much earlier eras, let aside make different figures from them to reflect said ideologies. There's a difference between writing a reimagining of a myth while keeping the core elements and themes or trying to add more nuance to that story and straight-up creating a version of it so meta that it ultimately ends up being nothing.

[oliviermiraarmstrongs]

mid-year book freak out tag

@bloody-wonder tagged me so now I have an excuse to talk about books I read

1. Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2023? probably her body and other parties by carmen maria machado, my favorites stories from it being “the husband stitch” and “especially heinous”. I love how the former weaves together urban legends as a backdrop and the latter is a surrealist meta version of law and order svu, which is much better than it sounds.

2. Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2023?

3. New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To? I’m curious about juniper and thorn by ava reid, and I can’t say the amount of pearl-clutching over it hasn’t played a part in bringing it to my attention. but really, I just like gothic horror and dark fairy tales!

4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2023? I dunno, I’m not up-to-date on these things

5. Biggest Disappointment? I’d say world war z and the southern book club’s guide to slaying vampires, but I had to read those for class so it’s not like I had any expectations anyway (for the record, WWZ I never finished bc all the militarism and boring technical stuff turned me off; southern book club kept my attention but its themes were delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, the characters were thinly sketched, the ending was anticlimactic, and the broad and wacky tone did not mesh well with the grotesque (often sexual) violence), so a better example would be a thousand ships; admittedly my standards also weren’t very high; I have a sort of “I can fix her” attitude towards mythological retellings; I know a lot of them fall short, but they’re like comfort food to me, and when one hits, it fucking hits. natalie haynes, you did not hit! nothing the book did justified it as a retelling, there wasn’t any sort of unique spin or exploration into the female characters’ interiority; it just did the trojan cycle again but sometimes we’re reminded that women…were there. Whoever said this was a better version of TSOA was telling straight lies!

6. Biggest Surprise? I didn’t have high hopes for mexican gothic, mostly out of a pretentious impulse I have to expect popular new-ish releases to be mid. Still, I love a gothic novel, so I decided to check it out. I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be not only very engrossing, but also a clever reworking of gothic tropes tied to a specific cultural setting. It really understood gothic horror not just aesthetically, but also a vehicle for themes of corrupt aristocracy, and the overlap between desire and disgust, and fucked-up families in an incestuous cycle of abuse. It’s still pretty flawed - I think the dialogue could be a bit clunky, especially in the case of the old village woman who feels less like a person and more like an exposition machine - but overall a great read, and I’d love to see more from Moreno-Garcia.

7. Favorite New Author? I already loved angela carter’s work in the bloody chamber, but nights at the circus is the first full-length novel I’ve read from her, and it really cements her as one of the greats.

8. Newest Favorite Character? sophia fevvers from nights at the circus, a bawdy, cockney, rubenesque trapeze artist famed across turn-of-the-century europe for her wings. Also enjoys proto-feminism, gold-digging, and hanging out with her tiny, feisty, anarchist-leaning foster-mother. There’s maybe meant to be some tension throughout the story over whether or not her insanely eventful life story is exaggerated or not, but I never doubted her. Believe women.

9. Newest Fictional Crush? Lady Jessica, the coolest milf the bene gesserit ever produced

💕Best Ship?💕 I didn’t read much with good shipping material, but shout out to noémi from mexican gothic and her boy version of a fragile and sheltered victorian waif love interest whose name escapes me. She’s always describing him like “He was so pale and iron-deficient and frail like a little baby bird and NOT HOT. I desire him carnally.” and meanwhile he’s just showing her his many different types of fungi. Less alpha males, more guys like this.

10. Book That Made You Cry? “eight bites” from her body and other parties hit a little too close to home; it captured really well how dysphoria drives you to abuse your own body, and how that hurts not just yourself but the people around you. “my mother and I” by lucy dacus-coded

11. Book That Made You Happy? I don’t read happy books! But probably nights at the circus, there be whimsy in these pages.

12. Favorite Book Adaptations You Saw This Year? andrea arnold’s 2011 adaptation of wuthering heights nearly made me feral. there’s not really a definitive film version, but the one from 2011, - while not perfect as an adaptation since, like most of them, it only covers the first half of the book - I’d say does the best job of capturing the spirit of the original. the thing that really impressed me was its portrayal of heathcliff - not as a brooding romantic hero nor an inhuman psychopath, but a boy who became something terrible because society never saw him as anything else. It’s film very subjectively, with shaky cam, no score, and nearly every scene being from heathcliff’s perspective - the iconic “I am Heathcliff!” speech is never shown in full, since he left before hearing the rest of it. It’s a really strong artistic choice to place the story firmly in heathcliff’s perspective, and it’s made more interesting by being one of the few adaptations to play into the book’s racial subtext.

13. Favorite Review You’ve Written This Year?

14. Most Beautiful Cover? The barnes and noble special edition of dune I have, which is gorgeous but also really impractical to carry around (pic from google images, I’m not at home rn)

15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End Of The Year? I gotta finish dune since I started at the beginning of the year and paused since I was so busy with school (and later paused again bc I was bored 🫣).

tagging @antema, @stolehisdog, @betweenironyandsilver, @vampire-juicebox, @chdarling, @excuseforadrink, @danielarlingtongf, @borispavlikovskys, and @altraviolence, if u wanna!

[clearlakeve]

a insomnia-driven set of thoughts (i.e. a book review) on Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under The Sea

I feel like I should like this book more than I actually did. On paper, it's got all the stuff I like -- a tragedy in the making, "you love her but you can't keep her", the ocean, cosmic horror, etc. But...something about the execution is just off for me I guess? 

Let me be clear: these are 100% my own opinions, and I understand that a lot of people like this book. That's absolutely fine! Nobody has to agree with me! Everyone is entitled to their own opinions! No hate here :)

Things I liked:

   1) I think the book does a very good job of acknowledging/representing the queer love? romance? at its core. Miri and Leah are married, and that is important to them, and it's not a major plot point or anything, but there are still subtle societal pressures surrounding them. It's always nice to see relationships like this normalized in a realistic way.

   2) The ocean descriptions. oh my god. I love the ocean and I think the book did an excellent job of conveying its beauty and also how terrifying and vast and unknown it is. "To know the ocean, I have always felt, is to recognize the teeth it keeps half hidden." Amazing. 10/10 line. Beautiful.

   3) Leah's chapters are pretty cool. She's obviously the more dynamic character to Miri's more passive one, and while this...has certain drawbacks I'll talk about later, conceptually the idea that the more passive person, the one left behind picking up the pieces is the one stuck in the present while the dynamic character is (in a sorta meta sense) stuck in the past is a pretty cool subversion of traditional adventuring/fiction tropes. It's clear that the Leah whose chapters we read no longer exists in Miri's present.

   4) It was always going to end like this. You were never going to be able to keep her. "Every horror movie ends the way you know it will." That one Tumblr post that goes something like "I loved you so much I broke the laws of nature to bring you back but I do not think either of us are happy." (aka the leftover pizza post). Despite the fact that I had issues with the way Miri and Leah were written, the sense of mounting doom constant in the background of the story was there, and contributed heavily to the tone of the overall story.

My problems:

   1a) I think my biggest problem is that the story and writing just did not make me care enough about either of the main characters. We are supposed to care about Miri, and through her, care about Leah. (I concede that Miri herself acknowledged this, but being self aware about this does not invalidate the detachment I felt from both the characters.) Leah and Miri are the center of the story -- if we cannot bring ourselves to care about them, the story sort of falls apart at the seams.

   1b) I think this lack of care is because neither Miri nor Leah get any real character development in the story. I was on a 14-hour flight, trying to understand why I loved The Song of Achilles but not this book, when they're conceptually and theoretically a bit similar. I mean, one reason is that Madeleine Miller's writing just works much better for me personally, but also, we are drawn to care about Patroclus and Achilles because we get to actually see Achilles develop as a character (from a young boy to an...adult?), and fight against his own demons and societal pressures. Even though it's a similar character pairing, where one character is much more dynamic than the other, the timespan of TSOA really works for it. In comparison, Our Wives Under the Sea sort of glosses over Miri and Leah's character development (we assume that it exists. It honestly might not.) in favor of a really short timespan and a lot of introspection. (Leah's portions are set in the past, but they focus pretty much solely on the events of the ill-fated submarine expedition, while Miri's are only about the aftermath. Kind of makes the whole story disjointed.)

   2) Connected to problem 1 (probably the reason for it tbh), but Miri is barely an entity in the story. This is bad because by and large, her sections are longer than Leah's. We know she loves Leah, she has a weird and complicated relationship with her mother, and probably suffers from some mental illness. But she spends such a large portion of the book waffling around and just being confused about everything! This does not an interesting character make. 

   3) Connected/extension to problem 2. Miri is so...passive? I wanted more emotion from her. It feels like she doesn't even do all that much to try to help Leah, it's really just her coming to terms that Leah is not actually back, and/or that she's changed. I wanted her to fight before coming to terms with it, or fight it to the end. Instead her entire tone was more just resigned. I cannot understand the care and love she had for Leah if she's so resigned and just depressed about it all the time. (Maybe her repeated calling of the Centre is supposed to be her fighting? Idk I just didn't get enough of that from her.)

   4) Too much is left unknown. I personally think the not knowing what Leah saw in the ocean is fine, but all the stuff happening with the Centre felt very mundanely confusing for no apparent reason? And I guess the author was maybe going for realism, where sometimes you just don't get answers to questions but...it's just more confusion on top of the already confusing wtf is happening to Leah thing.

   5) Kind of nitpicking at this point, but I felt like the introduction of Juna felt really unnecessary. I think it should've been someone else who drove Miri to the beach. Perhaps Carmen or Sam? Or maybe she drives herself idk. Most of the side characters in Miri's parts honestly felt useless to me. At least Jelka and Matteo seemed to serve actual narrative purpose in Leah's parts?

My final verdict: 2/5 ⭐.

Long story short, I really wish I had liked this book more than I actually did. It has such a cool premise! Maybe it was the stream-of-consciousness writing style or something, but it just wasn't my thing.

[streets-in-paradise]

Relatively simple curation of your experience permits you to escape tsoa hate, but It's literally impossible to escape complains about Troy.

If you know of somewhere on the Internet were people can shut up about everything it got wrong, please let me know. I would love to be there.

It's so disheartening how much hate Song of Achilles gets for "ruining Patroclus" ESPECIALLY compared to their silence of Troy 2004.

Like. Oh. Miller made Patroclus a doctor instead of a warrior? Cool. He's literally nothing in Troy. Maybe 2 lines. There is no reason for Achilles to care about him other than being cousins. But go off, I guess.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

"I have done it." - a TSOA Thetis meta

So I've been listening to the audiobook of The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller, for the past week or so, and I just finished the last 3 hours yesterday all in one go because I physically could not do anything else until I reached the end (except cry. I cried. a lot.)

I have two quick thoughts and then I'm going to Muse Deeply And Ramblingly about Thetis, Achilles' mom.

First off, The Song of Achilles is fanfiction. It is, obviously and patently so (at least to my eyes), and considering Madeline Miller's credentials (BA and MA in Classics), I assume that this literary framing was selected entirely and deliberately on purpose, in accordance with longstanding historical traditions. And I love and support her for this. It's amazing, it's brilliant, it's clever, and reading the one-star reviews for her book from people who don't understand this angle and are Affronted™ is some of the best evidence for its fanfic-ness. And also quite entertaining.

Secondly, absolutely mad props to the narrator, Frazer Douglas, who is more than capable of Doing All The Voices and makes everyone genuinely come to life with his voice alone. His soft British accent goes in a jaw-droppingly wide range of directions to cover everyone from the Thor-like Achilles to the breathy Briseis to the absolute death-metal guitar string screech of Thetis. I even heard an Aussie accent for one character, and another had a nearly undetectable Scottish accent that got thicker when he got upset. This man is just a delight.

If you have 11 hours to spare, give it a listen (it's just out there on YT). It's worth it for Frazer Douglas's voice alone, but you also get an epic tragic romance full of war and family drama and sad gay boys who would do anything for each other - and they do, repeatedly.

Alright, Thetis. Haven't been able to stop thinking about her all night/morning, so I need to write it out and see where I'm at. I'll do a cut for spoilers and cw stuff, because her story is uhhh, not happy.

spoilers for TSOA, going all the way to the end

cw: discussion of sexual assault, trauma, sociopathy, bigotry, manipulation of children

Thetis is a sea nymph, a goddess, who's just minding her damn business when this mortal dude named Peleus tackles her on the beach one day, using tips he got for how to catch himself a goddess-wife, because bros are pals like that for each other I guess. He assaults her, and the gods tell her she has to stay with him for a year because uhhh conquest and male rights, I guess. Sure. Thanks, guys, you're fab, love your system, so wholesome, very family oriented-

ohh I'm salty in here, wow who could have preDICTED

SO. So she grits her teeth and does her damned duty and stays for a year, and bears him Achilles, half-mortal, half-god.

A golden son with golden hair. Her hair is long and black like sea wrack. He does not look like her.

He can sing like an angel and play the lyre. She speaks with the sound of tumbling stones in the waves. He does not sound like her.

She got turned into an oven, a vessel, to create this kid. She's very salty about it, even for a sea nymph, and rightfully so. Lost a year of her life to this mortal asshole who just wanted to bone a goddess, and the product of that attack doesn't resemble her at all - only him. Only the mortal piece of shit who attacked her on the beach.

She shows up for events, she comes in like the estranged mom at a family reunion, gritting her teeth, speaking to no one, leaving as soon as she can. The only reason she bothers, is for Achilles - or is it?

Is it really? Does she love her son, or does she just hate his father more?

The book is told from Patroclus' perspective, as the boy who gets a crush on the godlike Achilles, and who is despised by his crush's mom. The layers of Patroclus' youth and perspective as a new and confused suitor really help to obscure Thetis' motives further. He doesn't know her, and he's actively trying to avoid her, or at least avoid angering her. And the best way to do that seems to be to stay out of her sight.

So, early on, it's hard to tell what Thetis is thinking. But in retrospect, I think she was primarily out for revenge on Peleus. She comes to see Achilles rarely, but she does tell him about prophecies and plans. She wants him to become a full god.

If he's 100% god, see, then there won't be any trace of his manipulative, gross, mortal father in him anymore. He will be fully hers. She's trying to cleanse her child of the taint of his father's mortality, because she feels tainted by it still. Elevate her son to godhood, and Peleus ceases to be relevant.

The gods are immortal, generally, and mortals come and go like the tide. They're not really important, and they blend together. One is as good - or as bad - as another. Until a specific mortal grabs Thetis on the beach, that is. That one mortal, oho boy, he made sure she remembered his face, but in the stupidest way possible. She just quietly decided to block him from the acclaim and renown that his son might fetch for him, by removing him from his son's system and making Achilles 100% god.

The Greeks had a lot of names and nicknames for each other, and a common one was the patronymic. For Achilles, he was called "Pelides", meaning "son of Peleus". It was a part of his identity.

So. Everything she does in the book, before Achilles falls in battle at Troy, is aimed not truly at elevating her son for his own sake, but at destroying every bit of mortality in him, because she hates Peleus - and by extension, she hates all mortal men. Because, again, they're all the same to her.

There is no "Thetis" in "Pelides." Peleus just waltzing in here, taking what he wants, and getting immortalized in his demigod son's nickname?

Thetis: I THINK THE FUCK NOT

And that includes Patroclus. This kid shows up, playing nice to her son, and all she sees is another mortal man with designs on his mind. She's wrong, of course. Can't see past her trauma and rage. So she actively tries to split them apart, to drive wedges, to threaten, intimidate, insult. She isn't subtle, either. She is very blunt.

And there is a sort of patience to her actions. She could kill Patroclus anytime she wanted to. But she doesn't need to kill him - he's mortal already. And killing him would anger Achilles, her weapon of choice against mortal men. She wants her plan to go smooth. It's not about Achilles, yet. It's still about Peleus.

This gets pretty ugly when Thetis kidnaps Achilles right out of bed with Patroclus one night, after no doubt listening in with her powers and hearing Achilles say that if Patroclus' oath forces him to war, then Achilles will go with him. She spirits him away to an island kingdom and makes him marry and sleep with Deidameia, the overweening princess there.

Her motive, as stated later, is to keep Achilles from going to war, since that is where he is fated to die, and she has Other Plans. But the marriage really didn't need to happen for him to remain hidden. In fact, that's what trips her up when Patroclus finally learns where Achilles was taken: Deidameia's proprietary attitude over him when he bolts from the dancing girls where he's in disguise and runs straight to Patroclus. That, and her spoiled rich girl attitude through all the scenes that follow.

Thetis why.

She's trying to do too many things at once, and so she ends up not quite accomplishing any of them. She can't hide Achilles very well because Patroclus truly loves him and looks until he finds him. She can't scrape Patroclus off of Achilles' heart, either, because Achilles truly loves him, too.

And then there's the horrible reenactment of her own assault, which she foists on her son. Achilles doesn't want to sleep with Deidameia but Thetis bribes him by promising to tell Patroclus where he is. And then she doesn't. It's not quite the same as Peleus' assault on her, but it's still very horrible. Achilles doesn't want this, and she forces the situation anyway.

Way to learn from the past, Thetis. Oh, wait, no no, that's not what's happening - or is it? There's a little wiggle room here, where she doesn't force force Achilles, as she was forced. She uses a different technique. Her choices are still terrible and cruel, and she is still mostly thinking about herself. She's telling herself "I'm not like them, I won't do that to someone," and she doesn't, but she does something so similar and horrible that many people would see the two manipulations as effectively the same.

Don't tell Thetis that, though. She's trying very hard not to be her demons, and she'd take that feedback poorly. Unfortunately, she still has a very long way to go. Gods don't learn things quickly.

She shows up years into the siege of Troy to drop the prophecy bomb about "the best of the Myrmidons will be dead in two years, but Achilles will live," and Achilles and Patroclus literally sit around and try to guess who that could possibly be.

It's Patroclus, has to be, obviously, but these boys are so battle-focused that they don't consider that a soft dude who spends his time in the healers' tents to be the best of them all. War is all they've known, for ten years now, almost half their lives, and basically all of their romantic relationship.

But I love how this isn't Thetis's prophecy, she's just spinning it. She delivers it to make sure that Achilles hears he can live without Patroclus (ahaha SPOILERS), but at the same time, its wording honors Patroclus as worthy and good! And Thetis can't give the part of the prophecy she likes without giving the part she hates. The part that says that a mortal man is as honorable as her son, the son she has been trying to erase mortality from. What kind of prophetic bullshit is this??

But it serves her ends, so she does it. And apparently the boys never figure it out, so in the end it's just as well.

But then, the unthinkable: Patroclus appeals to Achilles, begs him as his most beloved to hear him out, trying to help, and Achilles listens... softens... and loses Patroclus. The best of the Myrmidons. And promptly falls apart in rage and guilt and grief.

The prophecy said he'd live. It didn't say how well, nor how long. I wonder, because the book doesn't say, how Thetis handled this part. Seeing her son drowning in his grief, seeing him slay hero after hero while hoping only to perish and end his lonely suffering. Did it occur to her here, how different his reaction was to her furious daydreams about news that Peleus had died, or to killing him herself?

She would have screamed with riotous glee, and the shores would've been devastated by her chaotic power.

Achilles was those shores, and Patroclus' death was his ruin.

It must've baffled her, utterly utterly baffled her. He would not be swayed from his course, to die and end, and then to spend his eternity mingled with Patroclus.

I imagine Thetis went through a very slow, angry, reluctant series of baby steps as she struggled to understand: Why is my son different than me? Why can't he see what I see? Why does he think he wants something I despise? But, see, she must have. Very quietly, very mulishly - gods really are slow sometimes - because of where she got to at the very end.

But there's one more piece to Thetis's puzzle of trauma and guilt and grief and anger: Pyrrhus.

Pyrrhus was the nickname given to Neoptolemus, Achilles' only child, with Deidameia. It means "fiery", because he was a redhead. And he had a prophecy, too: Troy would never fall until he showed up to fight there. So he went, when he was apparently 12 years old!

The book takes time early on to show how skilled Achilles was at that age, thanks to his god blood, so there's a case to be made that Pyrrhus had the same boon in his veins - knowledgeable and skilled beyond his years.

This, however, does not go well for anyone, because of one tragic difference between Achilles and Pyrrhus:

Of the two god-blooded boys, only one of them was raised with Thetis' help. And it wasn't Achilles.

Imagine: You've stolen your son from his teenage lover's bed, manipulated him into taking a wife, and your plan to make him into a full god is going swimmingly - until said teenage lover shows up. Achilles bolts from his wife to the boy he calls "husband", your pick of wives starts shouting pettily about all the secret plans she was supposed to shut up about, and in the end, Achilles leaves for the war you were trying to keep him away from all along - with his preferred lover in tow. And you're left behind with this prissy pregnant bitch, her doddering kingly father, and the house of cards holding up your grand plans. What to do?

Start all over with the baby, of course.

Except now, possibly, Thetis is even angrier at humanity than she was before! Twelve years to shape a bright young hero's mind with every little consideration you never shared with Achilles, because now the anger burns hotter than the pain. Whether she meant to or not, I think Thetis turned Pyrrhus into a monster.

He's written very differently than pretty much every hero in the Greek epics. His flaws are not the common sort: greed, selfishness, fear, horniness, cowardice. Oh no. Pyrrhus' flaws are violent, knowing no bounds, honoring no conventions. He kills King Priam of Troy atop an altar - and in one historical version he does it by using a baby as a blunt weapon. He takes a queen as a slave, sacrifices a princess atop his father's tomb, steals another man's fiancée because he wants her for himself.

What a charmer. In TSOA he's first introduced to us as a snotty kid who genuinely believes he can do Anything Tee Emm. So, since he holds his father's honor above all else, he denies Patroclus' name being added to Achilles' monument and therefore traps Patroclus' soul there, preventing him from finding relief and rest in the afterlife, separating him from Achilles. Pyrrhus did that on purpose - of course he knows how that works.

What stands out to me is that Pyrrhus' targets are, notably, not other heroes. His father faces Hector, Penthesilea, Memnon, Troilus. Pyrrhus attacks an old king, a baby, women, the helpless.

Pyrrhus attacks people who are very, very mortal.

He's no coward. He was one of the warriors inside the Trojan Horse. But the way he's portrayed in TSOA, he really seems to have adopted a big, toxic Us vs Them superiority complex. Humanity is weak and bad and terrible, and the gods are strong and powerful. And strength is goodness, see, because with strength, you can make bad things not happen to you.

By making them happen to other people first.

That is what Pyrrhus goes out and does, over and over. He wreaks horrible death and disaster and he thinks that's just the way things go.

Which, karmically, it is, because eventually he goes too far, and someone finally kills him for his atrocities.

That karma echoes, too: Pyrrhus' doom came when he stole Orestes' bride, Hermione and assaulted her, and Orestes, son of Agamemnon, killed him for it.

What is Thetis to do with that?

She has created the monster she hates most, and he earned the fate she wished for the worst of humanity.

It's unclear how much time passes at the very end of the book, when Patroclus' soul is trapped at Achilles' monument. Perhaps it takes Thetis a long time to seek out her son's grave marker. Perhaps she goes there immediately. Either way, it's clear that, deep down, she understands: Achilles was, all along, the better man.

Part of what made him better than Pyrrhus was Patroclus. Part of what made Pyrrhus worse... was Thetis.

She didn't know Patroclus was trapped there, but once she does, she begins to talk to him, to ask him for memories. She has to ask, because she cannot visit the underworld, and Achilles is already entirely lost to her. She held herself away from Achilles all his life, from his humanity, from his very human relationship and loyalty, and so she didn't truly know him. She never wanted to know that side of him, his father's side of him. But she formed Pyrrhus without any humanity at all - and he became monstrous.

Perhaps she truly doesn't know what she did wrong. Perhaps she's just lost, adrift, having no weapons to stab humanity with anymore, and she's tired.

Perhaps asking to hear of her son from the man who loved him most is as close as a god can get to asking forgiveness.

And bless Patroclus for having, in those moments, enough humanity left in his soul to share the Achilles he knew, with the woman who should've loved them both. He's in torment, alone, unable to move on or reunite, and he has no hope of that changing, and the god he hates most in all the world has come to him. He is angry, he is fearless. And he chooses to be gentle anyway. To give her the softest truths of Achilles' life, to show her how very precious and human he was to him.

Two broken people, one dead, one immortal, finding a single moment together over a man who was both god and man. And because of their willingness and determination to keep reaching for something better, even in extremis, they both manage to find a little more humanity. For Patroclus, it is his last. For Thetis, her first.

She carves his name on the monument next to Achilles', marking and remembering him, and freeing his soul to join her son in the afterlife. She doesn't promise or claim the action. She does it silently, and tells him only when it is done, when it is unchangeable.

For a sea nymph, carving something in stone is a wildly powerful act. It is usually the act of centuries, of millennia, the slow grind of will. But Thetis, for once in her endless life, acts swiftly, on a mortal's timetable - as if honoring the short time that Patroclus had on the earth, and with her son.

She doesn't want to waste another moment - not of her time - but of theirs. Finally, there on the withering grass beside her son's memorial, she understands that her experience with mortal men is not a universal, that Achilles truly loved Patroclus, and that his love was pure and beautiful. That Patroclus adored Achilles, too, and never wished to possess him or control him, only to be allowed to remain at his side, no matter where in the wide world they might go.

No matter in any world, above or below.

She had tried to separate them in life, for her own vengeance. But with Patroclus' words in her mind, she could not in good conscience let them remain so in death. It would've been easy for any mortal to join them together again: a simple carving, a single word, and he would be free.

Easier still, then, for a goddess.

"I have done it."

Thetis did not deserve Peleus' attack. She did nothing to invite it. She struggled with rage and disgust for decades as a result. But the purity of the love between Patroclus, a mortal, and Achilles, a demigod, finally reached her heart, behind all its walls. Sometimes when we are hurt and cowering and lashing out at everyone around us, all we really want to hear is that, Yes, there is real love in the world, and it is beautiful and strong and unbreakable even by horror and betrayal and privation and death.

Love is stronger than the things that hurt us.

It's the end of the book, but it's the beginning of eternity for Achilles and Patroclus, and they get to spend it together because of her, despite all the cruelty and chaos she caused them before. So I hope it's the beginning of a new day for Thetis, too.

[jeanmoreaux]

okay but why did finising tsoa put me in a reading slump

[caffernnn]

I remember this line from the book where Achilles just cries to thetis "What good is godhead, if it cannot do this? What good are you?" when she refuses to let achilles grieve for patroclus. This was during the time Achilles was starting to regret his choices and find someone to blame for patroclus' death. Now imagine this with haru telling ryuuji that "what good is fame when he's all alone and miserable?" or something like that when he realizes he basically threw away everyone just to reach what ryuuji wants him to be- to be someone like albert, like who ryuuji always wanted to be but could never be.

Also as much as the rrelationship of meleager (the king from the legend) and achilles' stories is comparable to that of haru and ryuuji (or as the theories say), ryuuji would also make a good thetis. I mean, ryuuji is to haru that thetis is to achilles, being both the ones who tried to dictate the young ones' destiny, or so they say. I always thought rin would have been thetis, as per the events of the previous seasons, where he tries to make haru take the same steps as him, and i know i have casted him as odysseus and ajax before (ajax being the latest), i also think rin would be a good deidameia, if we only look at season 1 rin,where he forces haru to do things for him just because he thinks that haru should, similar to how deidameia tried to hold achilles to his bond to him through their unofficial marriage and unborn child. Kinjou is still pyrrha though, no one can replace that.

Also may I ask, have you already read tsoa? If not that's fine. I just found a passage in Circe, another work of Madelline Miller, where odysseus talks about how patroclus was achilles' best part of himself, and when he died, his sanity died with him. I mean, i know nao is officially my odysseus, but this also feels like something rin would say. But then again, nao managed to summarize every character's conflict in hs in what could be a single paragraph should it be written (i haven't read the novels, sorry).

Okay I knoooow I’ve rambled about this before in other convos with you, but that idea of Haru questioning his pride in the end and how much he’s willing to sacrifice in the name of “success” is just so intriguing!! Just from the little we know (or can infer) from FS spoilers, something flips in Haru to make him believe that this path of solitude is something necessary. The choice comes after denying that path multiple times, insisting he could have his cake and eat it too, and then beginning to crumble when he doesn’t think he’s strong enough or getting the results he “needs” to be getting. That’s one of the hardest parts in the aftermath of whatever mess he’s going to get into in the movies (and also in a patrochilles au, or similar stories): even if we can recognize the pressures and constraining environments that led up to his choices, and even if Haru tries in his confused grief to find somebody to blame but himself, these were still his choices. No matter how inevitable they felt at the time, Haru will start to feel guilty for the time lost and sacrifices made in his decisions. Part of the tragedy of it also lies in how Haru knows Makoto would find a way to forgive him for everything anyway, even if Haru wonders how much can/should be forgivable at this point.

I’d love to talk about Albert more at some point, because as much as I view him primarily as a omen-like mirror for Haru, he’s still someone worth exploring. His main function in the story thus far seems to be detached for a reason, that way we focus on those hard-hitting questions about sacrifice/success/isolation/etc with the characters we have more history and attachments to (Haru, Rin, Ikuya, the like). You have to wonder at some point though if Albert has ever had a moment removed enough from his current extreme routine/lifestyle to question his own motivations. How much did he have to give up to become someone who could take his connection with the water and fine-tune it into a cold weapon? Did he have much to return to or reclaim (his own bonds, his own passions) if this lifestyle started to break him? Haru’s story is one where the whole “friendship is magic” redemption storyline is expected and desirable, because we know enough about Haru by now to understand how his intimate connection with the water is interwoven with his history of creating strong bonds through swimming. It’s been a vessel for self-discovery and emotional connection throughout his life. How much time, if any, did Albert ever have to cherish his time in the water the same way before he was trained/led to weaponize it? Maybe the movies will explore more of his background, but I’m down for theories in the meantime 😌😌 (and any existing Albert lore I’m missing out on is welcome, because honestly I haven’t rewatched the show in a ~hot minute~ and haven’t paid much attention to Albert as his own person)

Nao Serizawa, you scary scary dude 🏃🏻‍♀️ he’s not necessarily an all-knowing monolith (people who talk about Nao and write fic/meta about him have all my love for capturing his complexities so well), but he’s one of the characters in that “observant/supportive/people-pleaser” category where you get more overt glimpses into how quickly he can analyze situations. Part of his edge when it comes to being in a guiding/leadership role is that Nao can take in different observations/information about the people he’s looking after and use that to start to making informed claims and decisions. The observations he makes about Haru and Makoto’s relationship come with that added layer of personal relatability that makes them a bit more direct and hard-hitting (I rambled about makoharu/natsunao parallels awhile back), but this insight extends to a lot of the people we’ve seen who look up to Nao in some capacity (baby Iwatobis, Natsuya).

[darlingpoppet]

Something that’s been on my mind for a while: I think it’s really important for anyone who wants to understand how Achilles is depicted in the Iliad to read/listen to the ENTIRE poem from beginning to end—and NOT just the scenes he’s in. Because all those scenes without him (books 2-15, excepting book 9 and some bits of book 11) paint a more complete picture… not just in how his absence is felt as things get more dire for the Greeks, but because it’s also littered with the characters describing all these mini episodes about Achilles, which Jo already alluded to above: such as Andromache in book 6 describing how Achilles buried her king father in his armor (rather than looting his body and leaving him to rot in the dirt, as the looting of enemies’ armor vs recovering allies’ bodies for proper burial is an oft emphasized honor struggle for both sides in the war); and then also ransoming Andromache’s mother back to them. In a small way it’s even implied to be fairly unusual compared to the other kings, or at least Agamemnon—because there’s another episode in the same book 6 where a Trojan begs Menelaus for mercy and to ransom him rather than kill him. So at first Menelaus agrees and starts to take him back to the ship, but Agamemnon sees him doing this and convinces him to show no mercy and kills the Trojan. imo showing that contrast was intentional, even if the poem doesn’t necessarily try to sway you one way or the other whose methods you should “agree” with, just that Achilles and Agamemnon undoubtedly think differently from one another.

To me these small bits add up because once Achilles is back on the battlefield you have all this broader context about him—not only his indispensable prowess, but also his personal beliefs & values are there in the back of your mind, which ends up enhancing the tragedy when he goes on his raging rampage because now that Patroclus is dead, and Achilles himself has entirely lost his will to live, he shows NO MERCY, HE IS GOING TO KILL EVERYONE HE GETS HIS HANDS ON, NO EXCEPTIONS… it hits so fucking hard!

There is the episode of him encountering Lycaon in book 21, who they explain is a prince, another one of Priam’s sons who Achilles (and Patroclus, who brokered the deal) opted to sell rather than kill, and after years Lycaon eventually got back his freedom and managed to return home, only to end up back in the hands of Achilles just few days after his homecoming. When begging for his life, Lycaon even appeals to Achilles by invoking Patroclus’ kindness (it’s what Patroclus would have wanted!!!) But Achilles’ answer is basically, Patroclus is dead, I’m gonna be dead soon, you’re not special, why should you of all people get to live? It’s just SO HEARTBREAKING like, THIS was the guy who spared lives, who buried an “enemy” with honors? And I put enemy in quotations because that’s another element to the whole thing—in TSOA there was that refrain of “Hector’s done nothing to me” which is an adaption of Achilles’ line in Iliad book 1 when he says that the Trojans had done nothing to him—he did not see these people as his enemies, he held no ill will toward them and wasn’t bound to the oath that the other kings were to fight in this war, so when he slaughters them all indiscriminately and desecrates Hector’s body with hate in his heart? Man, fuck war, fuck the cycle of violence, fuck it :/

So then of course that’s why book 24 & the meeting with Priam is such a catharsis moment (and the resolution to the story) because we get a glimpse of that Achilles that had been alluded to before—the real Achilles that had been cast away and obfuscated by all the events of the poem.

So anyway yeah in conclusion I totally agree with Jo that Achilles’ TSOA characterization is pretty faithful & consistent with the Homeric version of the character… they said he was a bit calmer in TSOA and I nodded along to that like, MM didn’t even really get to explore that element of just how much of a maverick Achilles was in contrast to the other kings, doing things his own way—to the degree that it was implied he often got into arguments over how things ought to be done and how they all ought to conduct themselves… because again, Achilles and Agamemnon DO NOT see eye to eye on these sorts of things… and let’s face it, humans is the same even now and most of those in society holding up the status quo see these young idealists as FUCKING OBNOXIOUS so I’m sure he had then and would have plenty of haters even in modern times lmao… and that part of the tragedy is him completely throwing away everything he personally ever stood for and believed in, because the depth of his grief and hopelessness led him to believe that if the person you love most, if your entire will to live is gone, then what’s the point? What’s the point of honor, of mercy, of kindness, of empathy, of peace? (AAAAAAHHH!!!)

i’d be super curious to hear your thoughts of the characterisation of achilles in the iliad! because while he is considered honourable and respected by the standards of the culture, surely by modern day standards he wouldn’t be so much? which is why i think that MM did such a great job, because she basically modernised him so that we would see him in the same ways that the greeks did re: his nobility versus his arrogance, but i thought the general consensus on achilles is that he’s an ancient greek hero which equals Not A Good Guy by our standards (but my formal education in classics is limited, i mostly partake as a hobby, so i’m always looking to expand my understandings and opinions and you’re obviously a very intelligent and considered person)

So I think the most important thing anyone needs to do when engaging with ancient greek works (and indeed any sort of work, especially those created millennia ago) is to keep an open mind. Importing modern moral judgement is anachronistic when it comes to the Iliad; hubris, as we understand it now, simply does not exist in the Iliad, there are no Good Guys vs Bad Guys, there are no Heroes or Villains. Those notions came much later and are very much a Christian thing. A hero in the Homeric world has no moral implication; he is simply a warrior. A dude that does things, and not necessarily admirable things. So it would be pointless to try to view Achilles or Hector or Agamemnon (or even the gods in the Iliad who do some pretty fucked up shit) as good or bad guys, because such a thing is irrelevant in the Iliad.

That being said, I feel like Achilles is portrayed generally positively both in the Iliad and also in other ancient Greek works. He is noble, that is, he is of noble/divine lineage, he is well-spoken, well-educated, generally reasonable and polite with pretty much everyone, except for Agamemnon in that opening scene in the Iliad (who was a dick to him as well). He is also honourable and with a very rigid moral code: in the Iliad it is stated many times that he prefers to ransom back captives instead of kill them, and he even lets the body of one of the Trojans he slew be burned with his armour on as a sign of respect, even though it is a thing of great importance in the Iliad to claim the armour of the people one slew. He is not greedy and doesn't flaunt his wealth, he is generous with his Myrmidons and is generally rather well-liked. Until Patroclus is killed and he goes on his rampage, he is a pretty chill dude; and then after Hector is killed, he organises the funeral games for Patroclus where he is shown to be very diplomatic and reasonable, even with Agamemnon; and then when Priam goes to ask him for Hector's body back, Achilles treats him with respect and the two men bond over their grief. So like, idk about you but those don't seem like the actions of someone crazed or extremely arrogant or bad, even by modern standards.

I think what is most telling about how a character like Achilles was perceived in the culture that created him, is that his portrayal in later ancient greek works, mainly the theatrical and philosophical works of around the 5th cent BC, is generally positive. Some playwrights depicted him as a bit of a hothead or a little boisterous and full of himself, but that isn't really framed as a bad thing. Achilles in those works is a famous and powerful hero who knows how good he is and how much the army needs him, but he isn't needlessly flashy, he always keeps his word, he is brave and heroic even by modern standards: in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis, Achilles goes to great lengths to protect Clytemnestra and Iphigenia from the mob, and it is pointed out many times how averse he is to trickery and lies and that Chiron brought him up to be honourable, steadfast, to keep true to his values and to stay away from wickedness (which is what Agamemnon did, essentially). So I think it's really clear that for the ancient Greeks Achilles has many admirable traits.

You mentioned MM and how she modernised Achilles and made him sympathetic to a modern reader's eyes, and I simply don't think that's true. I think MM's portrayal of Achilles is pretty close both to the Iliad and how other ancient Greeks imagined him; perhaps the only way she differs is by portraying him a bit calmer in places lol. She simply took away all those layers of nonsense that had been piled on top of him through centuries of literary criticism that took all the later Roman works that depicted him as a sadistic monster a little too seriously or only focused on how awful he was compared to Noble Hector (no hate on Hector but those classicists really need to find a new blorbo *smh*)

I also think that maybe MM went a little too hard on the arrogance thing and on his obsession with glory without explaining it enough, but that's just my personal opinion. Achilles is very concerned with his glory in the Iliad as well, but we have to keep in mind his position here: Achilles gave up everything for that glory. He knew about the prophecy and knew that he would die in Troy, and made the choice to fight in the war because glory is just that important within the context of the Iliad. I think that many of the heroes we see in the Iliad would have chosen the same, if given a dilemma like that. So Achilles gave up the life he could have had, his kingdom, his family, just for his name to live on through the ages, and then Agamemnon royally fucked that up by disrespecting and insulting him publicly in the vilest of ways. Achilles then made up his mind to abstain from the war and to go back to Phthia and thus giving up his claim to glory because he was so over the war, and he probably would have done that had Patroclus not died. And then there was nothing else for him to do other than to die as well. So like.... idk. His actions make sense to me. He is a passionate character who is swept away by his emotions, he has flaws, he isn't perfect (if such a thing even exists) but I think he's all the more compelling for it.

I hope this answered your question, anon! Thank you for giving me the chance to ramble about my favourite fictional man <3

[alovelylight]

yes i go to an expensive private university yes i honed most of my literary and media analysis skills from an adolescence spent on tumblr dot edu

[crosswire]

epilogue, appendix

Epilogue: What is a book that made you cry? there are LOTS! some of my favorite sad books are the song of achilles, we were liars, revenge of the sith novelization, and ruin and rising

Appendix: Overdone book trope that you still love? i love a nice enemies to lovers or lovers to enemies. i even love insta-attraction. (not instalove tho.) also TLC is filled with beloved tropes like fake marriage, overprotectiveness, childhood friends to lovers, and more and i love all those too)

thanks for the ask ellie<3<3<3 (ask me a bookish ask!)

[andessence]

me, going in to the “an arrow’s flight” tags for good pyrrhus content and finding next to nothing: :/ me, going into the general pyrrhus tag for any pyrrhus content and finding it flooded with hate from song of achilles fans: >:/

listen y’all i’m a tSoA stan too but we CANNOT possibly pretend to convince ourselves that madeline miller didn’t do other characters dirty to advance/give sympathy to her OTP. in some cases common iliad interpretation is subverted which is cool but other times facts are straight up IGNORED. it even happens with the main character like !!! patroclus’s funeral is before priam comes to beg for hector’s body back, but miller needed another reason for achilles to gently angst and correct a Straight Fool saying “sorry for the loss of your friend” so fuck the iliad’s timeline! it also probably wouldn’t do to have achilles squash reader sympathy by dragging hector’s corpse all around patroclus’s tomb but anyway.....

shit man before i even talk about pyrrhus i GOTTA say that she made some Real Questionable choices about patroclus’s representation too. i love that boy, i really do, and i think if miller’s characterization existed without precedent it would be totally fine but the undeniable uwu-ification of Soft Boi Sweet Baby patroclus is !! fucking rude and also pretty lame in imagination as it seems to say that one of our gays has to “really behave like the girl” and that’s !! wack !! yeah patroclus isn’t the legendary warrior achilles is.. but that DOESN’T MEAN you make him constitutionally unable to fight and relegate him to the office of femininity in order to code him gay!! it’s demeaning !! YES he can be good at medicine and YES he can think the war is terrible given his specific circumstances of “destined to lose my love in the war” and he can be sympathetic as a conduit character but it’s pretty fucking broke that miller clearly thought that it was necessary to make his character feminine in order to overtly show the gay relationship. it reeks of the “okay but which of you gays is really the man and which is really the woman” rhetoric

so KNOWING DEAD ASS that miller fudges characters to get the means for her love story, you gotta admit her treatment of pyrrhus is really fucking wack. yeah accounts of him generally seem to concur that he was Harsh and Rigid and Made Questionable Human Sacrifices but the specific way miller chooses to portray him is... hhhhh. okay so she wraps it in this guise of “he’s had all  the humanity bred out of him by thetis and therefore He’s Evil And We Hate Him, right?” but we’ve spent this WHOLE ASS BOOK talking about how war and society at large make monsters of us and that even a pacifist like patroclus becomes consumed by the glory of battle in the heat of it, so making your Unredeemable Asshole someone who’s human sense to hate violence is worn down by gods sort of mixes our symbolism up. is it man that corrupts himself? the gods? society? miller’s fucking up the clarity of that message with thetis creating this pyrrhus. it’s ALSO fucked because we spent the whole book building sympathy for achilles by patroclus saying “wow if achilles were raised by his mother he would have been cold and heartless and that makes me feel for the softness that could be lost in his demigod body” but pyrrhus LITERALLY UNDERWENT that tragic dehumanizing and suddenly we’re supposed to hate that instead of empathize with it! 

and of COURSE we had to put the last nail in the coffin of empathy for pyrrhus by having him try to r*ape briseis because miller has been using r*pe as a shorthand for evil this whole time and that sure doesn’t feel tacked on or oversimplified at all! and we have Woke Boy Patroclus whose opinions about women’s rights are SO anachronistic that everyone else looks like a monster (to be fair, it IS monstrous, but i can see the pandering in patroclus being our Feminist Good Guy from a mile away).

and making pyrrhus your plot contrivance not  to bury achilles and patroclus together right away?? idk abt that one buddy! feels like u needed just 1 more homophobic hurdle to overcome and u dropped that burden on pyrrhus! because pyrrhus being the hetero asshole ? y’all EVER read up on pyrrhus pre-troy? the whole ass episode with philoctetes? ENORMOUSLY GAY (even when i don’t mention how some modern retellings make it explicitly gay). the ONLY way i buy pyrrhus trying to stop achilles’ associated memory with patroclus is as desperation for honor and HMMMM WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! that’s the theme we always return to as achilles’ tragic flaw and that is made SYMPATHETIC AS HELL in achilles because when prophesies control your life and you can’t choose happiness, memory and honor are all you have, but when PYRRHUS makes bad choices to maintain honor and memory then suddenly it’s entirely unsympathetic and evil of him!

i’ll say it again i fucking love the song of achilles but i can do that while also acknowledging that it told a specifically manipulated and narrow narrative that left lots of character complexity on the cutting room floor

and if i have to live my damn life going through the pyrrhus tags just to see blind, belligerent “fuck you pyrrhus! patrochilles 4 LYFE” sentiment, i’m going to lose my fucking mind!

[calypsus]

  “I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth.”

[mntds]

Hmm ok. I’m in the mood for some t+c meta so i want to talk about why Patroclus’ characterization in TSOA and where it went wrong.

I’ve seen a lot of Discourse about TSOA that takes the stance that Patroclus is completely ooc and falls into harmful (modern) stereotypical tropes about queer men, namely that m/m relationships have a “female” partner and a “male” partner. The part about his character being off is definitely true, because while Patroclus in the Iliad is generally characterized as being Nicer than Achilles he’s still very much known and respected for his skills in battle and not at all a pacifist. However, I don’t think the part about MM basing his characterization in her own internalized biases about queer men is entirely true, although I don’t doubt that played a role in it- rather, I think it’s safe to assume that his character in TSOA is based very heavily on Patroclus from Troilus and Cressida, a play she’s directed and talked repeatedly about liking. (For those unaware, T+C is a Shakespeare play about the Trojan War.)

The problem with transposing Patroclus from Troilus and Cressida into an adaptation of the Iliad, though, is that Troilus and Cressida is very much a play about gender. Like seriously, it’s one of the most prominent and most unavoidable themes of the story. Patroclus isn’t just a twink who hates combat because “that’s how gay men are”, rather, his entire arc up until his death arguably revolves around his struggles with his gender expression and sexuality. He’s constantly being mocked for being feminine, and it’s implied that a lot of the Greeks assume that he’s seducing Achilles into backing out of the war. (Achilles’ whole plotline about Briseis doesn’t happen in T+C, and most of the Greeks don’t know his actual reason for not fighting.)

To me, the conclusion to be found here is that MM tried to make Patroclus in TSOA essentially the same person as he is in Troilus and Cressida, but she didn’t really incorporate any of the themes about gender that make him interesting. Who knows, maybe she didn’t pick up on these themes to begin with, or maybe she tried to include them in TSOA and just didn’t do a great job of it. Either way, his combat-averseness and general patheticness comes across as uncritical, which in turn makes his character feel stereotypical and one-dimensional, and takes away a lot of the nuance that the character originally had.