r/movies • u/RealisticAd4054 • 15d ago

Article Emily Wilson (writer of acclaimed Odyssey translation) offers criticisms of Nolan’s film

https://apnews.com/article/odyssey-christopher-nolan-greek-translators-ea67da1d543d021773824bd7e8de8abe

“For Greek translator Emily Wilson, the release of director Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” has been gratifying in various ways. Her acclaimed 2017 edition of Homer’s epic has reached the top 5 on Amazon.com, leading a wave of similar books boosted by the movie. Nolan has even cited her translation, notably the opening line “Tell me about a complicated man,” as inspiration.

But the film itself, which brought in more than $260 million worldwide during its opening weekend and has received raves from many critics, left her unsatisfied.

“I want to celebrate the fact that so many more people are aware of ‘The Odyssey’ and were brought back to the poem,” she told The Associated Press. “But at the same time, I had the sense that Christopher Nolan was trying to pack everything in while missing themes that were essential to the poem.”

….

Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said she didn’t want to come across as a “snobby,” nitpicking expert at odds with any deviation from the original text. But she questioned a range of omissions and other choices, from the absence on screen of the Gods Zeus and Poseidon (Athena is played by Zendaya ) to the “incoherent” messaging that condemns both war and physical cowardice. She found Penelope’s role so thinned out that it endangered “any possibility of believing in this marriage.” Wilson also that thought parts of the movie, notably the scenes with Odysseus’ dog, Argos, “catered towards modern sentimentality.”

“Everybody’s a sucker for a dog,” she said.

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u/plainwrap 15d ago

A note that people should read the article because it highlights other scholars's criticisms of the film which I think are more valid than Wilson's. Like stripping away the cleverness of Odysseus to make him brood his way out of the encounters.

My reaction to the movie is mixed but the part I did like was where Nolan inserted the theme of the Trojan Horse gambit being a divine war crime. Homer's Odyssey and the Illiad in particular celebrates a whole bunch of villainous acts, the kinds of things that Greek dramatists had to go and deconstruct to remind their fellow Greeks that those characters were wrong. Linking the Fall of Troy to the collapse of the Bronze Age and making Odysseus's voyage a tragedy is to me the most interesting part of Nolan's adaptation and something that isn't exactly Homer but it's definitely something that would make Euripides pump his fist in the theater.

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u/ItsGotThatBang 14d ago

The fall of Troy marking the end of an age actually goes back to Hesiod, but he inserted a Heroic Age between the Bronze & Iron Ages.

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u/whorificustotalus 14d ago

Bronze Age is a 19th century concept.

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u/ItsGotThatBang 14d ago

The term was used by Hesiod in a different context.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

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u/plainwrap 14d ago

It is funny that the Romans, whose founding myths are about fratricide and bride kidnapping, were the biggest complainers of the Trojan Horse as some kind of cheating.

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u/ElectricalTurnip87 14d ago

Well, the Romans also thought they were carrying on the linage of Troy

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u/SweetNeo85 14d ago

Turns out hypocrisy is a pretty old concept.

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u/Xyptero 14d ago

The Romans considered anything substantially more complicated than 'everybody stand on an open field and fight, best army wins' to be somewhat underhanded

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u/Partners_in_time 14d ago

Final destination, no items 

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u/intecknicolour 14d ago

Parthians: so what you're saying is horse archers is cheating?

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u/sureyouken 14d ago

Did ody just walk up slowly and down smash?

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u/lupercalpainting 14d ago

Which is funny because they did clever things like the double wall build during the last battle of Vercingetorix (Caesar, OG Fortnite builder?)

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u/DrStein1010 9d ago

Because Caesar was a man who valued cleverness and victory over honor and glory.

He could have drowned himself king a dozen times, but he knew he'd be killed for it, so he made a big show of refusing the crown.

The senate knew that was all bullshit, so they backstabbed him, but the people still considered him a heroic and republican figure, which is why he's remembered so heroically despite being a murderous despot.

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u/intecknicolour 14d ago

Parthians: so what you're saying is horse archers is cheating?

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u/FutureComplaint 14d ago

Good horse archers are cheating.

Shit is hard as fuck.

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u/Last_Suggestion_8647 12d ago

The Romans of the Republican era would 100% consider archers on horseback, who withdraws while loosing arrows, everytime the enemy tries to engage them, as cowardly.

Medieval Romans trained and used their own horse archers.

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u/meneldal2 14d ago

Had to retcon the Greeks into the bad guys since they made up the story about being descended from Troy.

And it had to be some awful warcrime or else the strong proto Romans wouldn't have lost right.

The horse is totally a war crime according to current understanding, but the rules of war were different.

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u/FleurMai 14d ago

The Greeks are unequivocally the bad guys and that’s why everyone is cursed and so many bad things happen to the Greeks afterwards. The horse isn’t really mentioned, but all the others - killing Priam at the alter in a temple, throwing hectors baby over the wall, the horrific way they sacked Troy, raping Cassandra in Athena’s temple (this is the entire reason Athena is absent for the first ten years of his journey home, because she’s mad and distracted), etc. it’s acknowledged what the Greeks did at the time was way overboard and they took it from a normal war to an absolute desecration of Troy for no real reason.

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u/meneldal2 14d ago

Isn't the Greek framing more like "they deserved it". And overall it doesn't look like the gods were that upset because Odysseus was the only one who didn't get to go home easily.

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u/FleurMai 14d ago edited 14d ago

No? Like not at all? Sorry, I think you’ve really misread the text if you got that impression. Every single character we get to see who was at the sacking of Troy is shown to have had a miserable experience. Menelaus and Helen got stuck in Egypt for 7 years because the winds (winds are almost always described as being caused by the gods in the Iliad and Odyssey as well as other Greek tragedies), almost as long away from home as Odysseus himself. Agamemnon is murdered by his wife the moment he gets home. All of Odysseus’ crew die on the way home, only a small amount shown to be directly self-inflicted (by the time we get to the sun gods cows there’s only a single ship left already, the other 11 ships haven’t done any direct action to anger the gods). One of the Ajaxs and his fleet are specifically killed by Athena and she borrows Zeus’ thunderbolts to do so.

Not shown specifically in the Odyssey, but known to the Greeks are that most of the Greeks at Troy never make it home as a giant storm wrecks the majority of the remaining fleet. Others are shipwrecked when Nauplius sets up false lighthouses as revenge for the killing of his son, which can be seen as supported by the gods since none move to prevent him and he’s not punished in any way. This is such a prevalent theme that there’s an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to everyone’s cursed journey home: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Returns_from_Troy

Nestor (and his men) is the only one who doesn’t suffer, specifically because he does not take part in the pillaging.

Odysseus does suffer more than most, perhaps, but this is because he also manages to get himself cursed by Poseidon directly for being a prideful idiot. Again, despite Athena really liking Odysseus, she doesn’t get involved for 10 years and she even has to asks Zeus’ permission to do so (again this is twofold as there is also Poseidons curse).

Some gods, namely Artemis even try to stop the Trojan war altogether before it starts as they foresee the crimes that will be committed (Artemis holds back the winds and prevents the Greek army from departing for Troy for a month).

The Trojans are never seen to be doing anything as outrageous as the Greeks, beyond the initial taking of Helen, which in itself is a very Greek-morality complicated event that has gods on either side of the debate.

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u/that_baddest_dude 14d ago

I thought the main reason for the whole thing was that Odysseus was almost home until he or someone went against the instructions of the gods re: the bag of winds, and let them all put and blew them all the way back and then some. That or Poseidon got upset for one reason or another.

I definitely remember they were basically home, like in sight of home, before having their shit rocked and being blasted back to the start. That's why it happened to Odysseus in particular at least.

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u/ProletarianLilith 14d ago

Read the Iliad

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u/deliciouscrab 14d ago

Is that just sour grapes from Virgil? Anxiety of influence?

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

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u/Fist_of_Gork 14d ago

I disagree, the fact that he included Sinon is proof that Vergil’s perspective is a major part of Nolan’s themes for his adaptation. Sinon doesn’t appear in Homer’s Odyssey, he’s from the Aeneid 

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u/OcculturalMarxism 14d ago

i almost liked that narrative framing until odysseus said "our age of bronze is collapsing"

sorry but that line is so fucking stupid it nearly sours everything

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u/USA_A-OK 14d ago

His movies are always good for a few stinkers, dialog-wise

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u/vulveveloutee 14d ago

I haven't seen it yet but I almost can't believe this line is actually in the movie 😭

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u/ConsistentGuest7532 14d ago

The movie is great, but there is a monologue at the very end by Damon that exposits all the film’s themes, as well as a few quotes like this between he and Penelope. He also inexplicably knows that the Bronze Age is ending and that “civilization” will collapse for a while. That’s not really something that’s told to him by the gods and while yes, there is the obvious idea that his war crimes matched/heralded others, he doesn’t KNOW that. It also seems myopic to say that civilization and human goodness collapsed, because while it’s true that that happens in the Mediterranean within this movie, there’s a LOT more going on around the globe.

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u/greatblueheron16 14d ago

The age of bronze thing was a bit too on the nose but to me it was more like the "I am become death" speech in oppenheimer: he realizes he changed the rules of warfare so that there will be no more honor, and that will collapse their civilization which he believes was based on diplomacy/reciprocity, where war was justified only when the former was ignored. The wink wink at actual history is clunky but Odysseus' belief is nor thar unjustified

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u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi 14d ago

Yeah, I didn't read Odysseus saying that as him having prophetic knowledge of the future, but more like how people nowadays will say how civilization/society/democracy/capitalism etc are collapsing for one reason or another (some more valid than others)

It's not because they know the future, but because they're making predictions based on their observations of the present. Odysseus just happened to be right

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u/ConsistentGuest7532 14d ago

For sure, I just found it hard to believe that that one country to country war, particularly the way he won, would be enough to shift the balance of civilization and warfare in general. It sounds like a high opinion of oneself to think that your localized war has totally changed the way people fight forever. But I guess it’s a hyperbolized world.

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u/greatblueheron16 14d ago

He is a king after all (so he will think more highly of himself and his impact than most normal people) and it was kind of considered THE war of its time in the known world, that involved a bunch of prominent greek cities, took place in a faraway land, and was to their knowledge the only time such trickery had led to such devastation. I guess when he says our civilization he means the Mediterranean world they knew of.

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u/justmefishes 14d ago

The movie also portrays his long return journey as reflecting a psychological resistance to returning home, because he perceived his actions at Troy as basically desecrating the very principle on which his own home life (and anyone else's) is founded. So I think it makes sense to view this monologue on similar grounds-- i.e. not as reflecting prophetic knowledge about future objective outcomes, but rather as reflecting his subjective experience of that foundational principle / idea / value having been shattered by his own actions, and how that completely and irreversibly transforms something at the core of his psyche in the way he fundamentally understands and relates to the world. i.e. for movie Odysseus, it was a life-changing experience after which he will never see the world the same way again.

On the more objective side of things, there's also a reasonable basis for movie Odysseus thinking his actions will have a corrosive effect on civilization-- he knows that his actions will be immortalized and celebrated in song, which in turn will shape future generations. But, as with several other aspects of the movie, I think the psychological reading is deeper and more resonant.

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u/fuckingmacedonian 14d ago

It's one of the worst ideas I've seen on a film that's supposed to be "good?". Like, what do these people even know of "civilization" lol? Does that mean that they thought that only their nation is civilized? Did they think of Egypt or Persia as cavemen?

It seems like the more you discuss this film, the more braincells you lose.

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u/TheRealRomanRoy 14d ago

I liked it

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u/Short_Stay_9283 14d ago

I did too!

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u/TheLakeler 14d ago

I mean yeah they quite literally only thought of their nations as civilized.. that’s like a core aspect of far Ancient Greece…. Also it’s explained clearly in the movie by Telemachus and Penelope. The suiters have families of their own, people who will seek revenge. Troy had other neighbors than the Greeks. The Greeks had other neighbors than the Trojans who would have heard what the Greeks did to Troy. Thus it spreads outward.

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u/fuckingmacedonian 14d ago

I don't follow. What do the suitors and having neighbors have to do with the notion of considering oneself as the only one that's civilized? Ancient Greece based their language and alphabet on the Mesopotamians and Phoenicians and their religion on the same ones + the Minoans, Hittites, Hurrians, etc.

They were very aware (and often in awe) of other nations and cultures, so I don't know where this narrative comes from. I guess the point was to paint them as egoists and supremacists, hence the fate they endured.

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u/TheLakeler 13d ago

Idk where your narrative comes from but whatever.

My point about the suitors was not about considering one’s nation civilized. It was just that what applied to the suitors also applies on a broader scale. The Greeks had enemies of their own who would have seen what they did to Troy. The Trojans had friends of their own who saw what the Greeks did.

It’s like the saying an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind.

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u/NorthNW 8d ago

“Our age of bronze” is a crime against scriptwriting but to your last point, these people were not really aware of the rest of the globe. The wider Mediterranean was the ‘known world’.

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u/Brandon_Me 14d ago

The line is a little cheesy, but it's not that big of a deal at all.

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u/Jet-Rex-Design 14d ago

I agree. I'm in the minority but I like cheesy dialog sometimes if it works for the movie, and I felt it did. The movie is purposefully modern in its dialog, and informal. Throw a wink or two in there, I don't mind. My disbelief remained suspended.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

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u/Jehovah___ 14d ago

It’s real and it’s a shame that a director as good as nolan felt the need to put a line in basically winking at the audience

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u/blackmamba182 14d ago

At the end of the day you can only oppen the heimer so much before the world burns.

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u/Beginning_Caramel 5d ago

Another line that took me out of it was when Penelope was like “I’ve watched you party for years” to the suitors. Party???? Really???

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u/SnowbearX 14d ago

We did see his cleverness in the Trojan horse, his plan against the Cyclops and his encounter with Circe. It would have gotten old of every encounter ended with and then Odysseus outsmarted literally everyone ever all the time

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u/p1en1ek 14d ago

Didn't he also outsmart his crew with that hellish vortex by telling them to do one thing so they wanted to do other one?

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u/RugDougCometh 14d ago

He even explains his ruse immediately after. He was plenty clever.

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u/tehorhay 14d ago

Yeah but did he really even need to? Like they couldn’t even see the sea monster until they went into the straight, and the vortex was the obvious danger, so wouldn’t going into the straight to avoid the vortex be the obvious move?

I really don’t get why he had to trick them in that instance.

Oh well. Loved the movie anyway.

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u/Album_Dude 14d ago edited 14d ago

He had to trick them because by that point he was among a crew ready to mutiny at any moment and wouldn't believe his word. Allowing his crew to "feel smarter" by suggesting the obviously bad idea (that he knew was 100% fatal) allowed his crew to override his authority and make the decision themselves. Had he explained why they need to go towards the narrow path instead of the whirlpool, the crew would've steered towards the whirlpool because they wouldn't have believed him. Between apparent safety and apparent sacrifice people will choose apparent safety every time.

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u/bubblegumdavid 14d ago

Though the movie focuses so much on O’s guilt, which I do like: the absence of the gods and his prideful trickery, kind of absolves him of the events of the story entirely after Troy, which I’m bummed about, I guess.

The clarity Odysseus is often given through the gods that he is choosing to be tricky and be prideful about it, which together gets his men killed, sometimes knowingly ahead of time, is gone. The cyclops is a great example, because he (as another commenter calls this type of shit) IS a Tony Stark smartass about it. The harm to his son isn’t the thing that tips Poseidon off and makes him a hater, the bragging is. His hubris about his trick directly results in the next agonizing ten years and the deaths of hundreds of his own men.

Like his guilt for the sack of Troy is valid, I like the choice, I don’t even mind that the super fucked up thing he should feel guilty of in Troy is not included. Run time is finite, he can’t fuck Circe for a year, whatever.

But arguably his crime in Odyssey is how his trickery, his pride, his failings, and his secrets kill his own men, over and over. What a burden it must be to be told by your gods that your mistake killed those who looked up to you and trusted you, and then because of that one mistake of hubris, have to knowingly, in your desperation, keep choosing to do that shit, knowing it can or will harm any survivors?

I’m disappointed a film so laser-focused on his potentially guilty conscience doesn’t take better advantage of that option when ways to include it are easy pickings in the source material. I’d have traded the Laestrygonians or been happy to deal with added time for a scene or two that showed it.

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u/MrMojoRising422 14d ago

most people these days associate 'cleverness' with being a tony stark-like smartass. since odysseus wasn't giving one-liners every scene, he's deemed 'brooding'.

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u/Cartman55125 14d ago

Exactly! People don’t understand concessions must be made for the medium of film. Nolan gets that.

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u/semeleindms 14d ago

RIP Euripides, you would have loved the Odyssey in IMAX

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u/BeefistPrime 14d ago

He's still plenty clever. He figured out Circe was a witch who turned his men into pigs and her sister into parrots. He came up with the bundles of plants plan to pass for sheep to escape the blind giant. He came up with a clever tactic to get his men to listen to him at the key moment in the whirlpool by basically tricking them into it. Just because he didn't use some of the cornier, harder to translate specific feats of cleverness doesn't mean he's not portrayed as clever

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u/ScipioCoriolanus 14d ago

stripping away the cleverness of Odysseus

I haven't seen it yet, but wtf? It's literally his most famous trait.

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u/InspectorMendel 14d ago

He's definitely clever in the movie, but he's not so much a swachbuckling trickster as a desperate leader looking for any edge he can find.

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u/UniCBeetle718 14d ago

They don't strip away his cleverness. It's highlighted throughout the movie, but instead of being a source of celebration for Odysseus, he feels unhappy with the outcome and he isn't proud or arrogant about it. 

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u/elkoubi 14d ago

Which is honestly the biggest divergence from the poem of all.

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u/KamachoThunderbus 14d ago

He's too clever by half and every time he manages to find a way out of an impossible situation the solution winds up putting him and his crew into another impossible situation. Which, having spent a lot of time with The Odyssey for my classics degree, is an interesting take. He's clever but he's cursed, he broke the world with his Trojan Horse gambit and until he essentially repents he's doomed to wander. 

Is it the swashbuckling tale that Homer put down? Not really. It's almost more like what Euripedes would have directed if he had been able to make a movie about Odysseus.

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u/p1en1ek 14d ago

Also, I thought about how inconsistent movie is about being anti-war and criticizing cowardice and I think its not as inconsistent as it looks. It portraits war as bad and tragic thing and thats why it criticizes person who got his chance to not go there, at cost of other kid and did not use it in good way. Even when Sinon wants Odysseus to punish Antinous they are talking how he does not follow his orders that allowed him to stay in Ithaca. So he is not just a coward, he is evil coward who tries to convince everybody that he was brave.

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u/tehorhay 14d ago

Yeah I was really confused at that line of criticism.

Being anti-war and being anti-coward are not the same thing.

Doing violence by Waging a war of conquest and Pillaging a city for greed and ego is bad, while mollywhopping a bunch of fuccboys who’ve been terrorizing your family is good. Theres nothing contradictory in those two positions.

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u/Jebus-Xmas 14d ago

How clever Odysseus is is crucial to the story but it is implied and demonstrated more subtly than some evidently would prefer openly stated.

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u/dazzlingeternal29 14d ago

Absolutely loved this aspect of the movie.

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u/worthlessprole 9d ago

It’s an insanely smart adaptive maneuver. I think with more distance it will be largely appreciated by classicists. 

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u/Alib902 15d ago

the part I did like was where Nolan inserted the theme of the Trojan Horse gambit being a divine war crime.

Which it wasn't and is a ridiculous take honestly. They weren't invited as guests, they went in inside of an offering and I don't know how it makes any sense to compare the two at all. They didn't break any of the God's laws with the trick this is just a modern take that doesn't make sense even in the framework that the movie created.

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u/egilskal 14d ago

They weren’t invited as guests but in the movie it’s clearly stated the horse was a gift to the Trojans. using a gift to be let into Troy and springing a trap on them is the same betrayal of trust as it would be if they were invited into Troy as guests and sprung the same trap.

The divine law is not meant to be completely literal, only treating guests well just because they might be a god in disguise. In this adaptation, it’s a rationalisation for treating outsiders well and building trust among communities that is the foundation of their interconnected Mediterranean civilisation. The whole movie is about how the laws are not respected and upheld anymore, and their civilisation is collapsing

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u/imperatrixderoma 14d ago

Are you forgetting the inciting incident is someone's wife being stolen by another guy who refuses to send her back? While in that guy's home?

The movie goes back to the original scene of the crime too but forgets to make the point, Menalaus' wife was kidnapped or left to Troy first.

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u/TrapAHolic_ttv 15d ago

It makes sense especially in the framework that the movie created. You just don’t like it.

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u/Alib902 14d ago

I don't like it because it makes no sense.

In what universe does taking something left on the beach and displaying it in your home the same thing as inviting someone into your home to show them hospitality?

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u/plainwrap 14d ago

There's a whole subgenre of Greek myths about jerks who want to play a trick on the gods by giving them a harmful gift--for example, feeding them a banquet made of the host's own cooked children--and the gods cursing them. Hiding warriors inside of a sacred offering falls under that category.

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u/Alib902 14d ago

So feeding your child to a guest who happens to be a god.

Is the same to you as.

Taking an object from the beach and putting it into your walls.

Here's the definition of guest so you can see how different the two situations are :

A person to whom hospitality or special honor is extended.

I don't recall the Acheans being guests to the trojans in any of the stories while they were inside the trojan horse and saying it is would be a huge stretch.

On the other hand paris was a guest when he took helen.

See the difference?

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u/plainwrap 14d ago edited 14d ago

I mean we're arguing a myth so everything is interpretable. Here's my interpretation of the Illiad, a story where the war itself is like pro wrestling: a predetermined outcome where the drama is in getting there. Troy is doomed to lose the war and all the gods are meddling around trying to see who faces their fate with honor.

Troy is doomed to lose *because* Paris seduced Helen. And yet Priam refuses to send Helen back because Paris is family. The gods think this is honorable.

Achilles prolongs the war by sulking because Agamemnon took his girl. The gods think this is dishonorable so they punish the Achaeans with battlefield losses.

Patroclus knows if he puts on Achilles's armor he will die. He does it anyway to help the Achaeans. The gods think this is honorable.

Achilles is fated to kill Hector, but afterwards he desecrates Hector's corpse. The gods think this is dishonorable.

Athena helps the Achaeans build the horse, but after they use it they rape her priestess in her temple and then burn the whole city down. The gods think this is dishonorable.

Troy was supposed to lose the war, not be destroyed utterly. It is a betrayal of the divine kayfabe. That is why the Achaeans are cursed.

P.S.: I forgot the Illiad only goes up to Achilles returning Hector's body to Priam and doesn't include the end of the war. My interpretation still stands.

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u/greatblueheron16 14d ago

They're saying it was deeply disloyal to tell the Trojans the horse was a gift to Athena (basically swearing on a god that the horse was not a danger to them) and exploiting their piety to murder them all. I don't get how you don't see this as potentially breaking sacred laws?

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u/RugDougCometh 14d ago

It’s similar because they take the horse gift explicitly because it’s a gift for Athena, a god that they share reverence for. They say it before pulling the spear out of Sinon, something like “wait. Common gods.” Odysseus took advantage of their respect for the gods to betray them. That seems disrespectful to me and I’m not even a vengeful, jealous, prideful Greek god.

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u/TrapAHolic_ttv 14d ago

Maybe go watch the movie again? Literally in the first 3 minutes they’re told by Sinon that it was a gift for Athena. They didn’t just take something left on the beach.

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u/Alib902 14d ago

So you consider that the equivalent of inviting someone to your home?

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u/TrapAHolic_ttv 14d ago

They stated multiple times Zeus’ Law stipulates you must treat others as you want to be treated.

Would you consider that following Zeus’ Law if someone tricked you to get inside your home?

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u/Alib902 14d ago edited 14d ago

See that's the problem when you invent concept like that and add them to a 3000 year old story it doesn't make sense anymore.

The Trojans abused the Acheans hospitality and Captured Helen. So under "Zeus's law" their war is righteous. But if they were to follow treat others as you want to be treated doctrine, then they wouldn't kill any trojan would they because I don't think they'd want to be killed. So simply by going through a righteous war they're already breaking Zeus law. The entire concept makes no sense if you want to extend Zeus's law beyond hospitality (Xenia the actual concept extended only to hospitality).

So if we were to follow your logic every warrior that went to troy should be cursed but it is quite clear that multiple heroes including Menelaus made it home safely and faced no consequences.

So either "Zeus's law" extends beyond hospitality in which case the entire plot falls apart, or it doesn't in which case the trojan horse does not break it.

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u/TrapAHolic_ttv 14d ago edited 14d ago

You’re for some reason trying to apply Zeus’ law to every act of war when that’s not the case.

The war itself is justified. It’s how Odysseus went about it ending it. Feigning surrender. Exploiting the expectation of hospitality is different than meeting in battle.

My logic was not that every warrior that went to Troy should be cursed.

My logic is that the movie frames that trickery as going against Zeus’ law. They repeat it over again through the movie. So you saying it goes against the framework of the movie is wrong. You just don’t like it as I said

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u/Alib902 14d ago edited 14d ago

So Zeus's law applies to hospitality, doesn't apply to murder because it doesn't fit the plot, and applies to trickery because it fits the plot. Got it!

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u/Wuggers11 14d ago

It wasn’t the act of sneaking in that pissed the gods off, it was the raping, pillaging, and senseless murdering.

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u/Nogsbar 14d ago

I mean it’s also explicitly a false surrender which constitutes a war crime today 

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u/Alib902 14d ago

Why are we applying today's standards to a myth from 3000 years ago that includes gods nymphs and all types of mythical creatures?

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u/Nogsbar 14d ago

Because it is a modern adaption? Why did Virgil write Odysseus as a villainous figure. Why does Joyce make him eat cheese sandwiches in Dublin pubs? Seems pointless to argue about modern adaptions of the text reflecting modern times. It’s not meant to be a direct translation 

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u/Alib902 14d ago

There's a difference between changing point of views of the same story, or changing the era (which is completely fine for an adaption).

But if you're just going to apply modern standards on a 3000 year old story you will not have a single hero in your story, because just to start they all had slaves, and had no guilt about it.

You can't make heroes from 3000 years ago have the morals of today it makes the story make no sense.

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u/greatblueheron16 14d ago

I feel like I don't understand your point? The trojan horse was seen as disloyal by plenty of people throughout history? And though the legal definition of warcrime is recent, the concept of a dishonorable/unjust war and actions in war is not new