CreeperTrainz

[creepertrainz]

Updated my speculative Trojan War timeline, hope you like it!

To start, here's my condensed version that shows the age of most of the major characters at the start of the Trojan War, and the chronology of key dates:

Preface

This nearly century-long timeline is meant to show the key dates of the Trojan War cycle as well as the Argonautica and other nearby myths, and key events in the lives of many of its characters.

Year 0 is denoted as the year that the Achaeans set sail for Troy, with year 1 starting the moment they land at Troy. Due to the greater degree of uncertainty, all events before the birth of Helen will be rounded to the nearest five years. Information is primarily taken from the poems of the Epic Cycle (mostly the Iliad and Odyssey) as well as Apollodorus's library. Note that all of these dates are speculative (and often can be moved by several years) and I've had to ignore certain details that utterly mess up the timeline. May reblog later with my (very long) explanations of some of the decisions. Otherwise enjoy and feel free to ask any questions!

Timeline

Year -70: Nestor, Priam and Theseus are born

Year -60: Laertes and Peleus are born

Year -55: Hecuba and Anticlea are born

Theseus slays the Minotaur and becomes king of Athens

Year -50: Telamon is born

Year -45: Heracles is born

Year -40: Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Jason are born

Year -35: Menelaus, Hector, Paris, Medea, and Atalanta are born

Year -30: Clytemnestra, Helen, Castor, Pollux, and Cassandra are born

Atreus is killed by Thyestes

Agamemnon and Menelaus are displaced from Mycenae

Year -27: Odysseus gets his leg scar

Year -26: Penelope and Aeneas are born

Year -25: Diomedes is born

Year -24: Patroclus and Telamonian Ajax are born

Year -22: Heracles begins his Twelve Labours

Teucer is born

Year -21: War of Seven against Thebes

Diomedes’s father Tydeus is killed

Year -19: Helen is kidnapped by Theseus and Pirithous

Year -18: Events of the Argonautica

Achilles, Antilochus, and Deidamia are born

Helen is rescued by Castor and Pollux

Dozens of heroes join Jason’s expedition to find the Golden Fleece

Year -16: Calydonian boat hunt

Clytemnestra marries Tantalus

Year -15: Agamemnon retakes Mycenae from Thyestes with the aid of Tyndareus

Agamemnon kills Tantalus and marries Clytemnestra

Atalanta marries Hippomenes

Cassandra is cursed by Apollo

Patroclus is banished from Opus and is taken in by Peleus

Year -14: Iphigenia is born

Year -12: Oath of Tyndareus

Dozens of suitors travel to Sparta to compete for Helen’s hand

Menelaus wins or is chosen and marries Helen

Odysseus is betrothed to Penelope

Year -11: Judgement of Paris

Hermione is born

War of the Epigoni

Diomedes becomes king of Argos

Year -10: Abduction of Helen

Theseus is rescued from the underworld

Heracles finished his Twelve Labours

Year -9: The Oath of Tyndareus is called

Achilles prophesied to die in a war with Troy

Achilles sent to Skyros by Thetis and later falls in love with Deidamia

Year -8: Mysian Campaign

Initial attempt to attack Troy fails, instead razing the city of Mysia

Odysseus marries Penelope

Events of Medea

Year -5: Achilles marries Deidamia

Year -4: Neoptolemus is born

Year -3: Orestes is born

Year -2: Odysseus’s dog Argos is born

Year -1: Telemachus is born

Year 0: Achaeans set off for war

Odyssues forced to leave Ithaca by Palamedes

Achaean fleet sails to Aulis and is stranded

Iphigenia is brought to Aulis and is sacrificed

Year 1: Trojan War begins

Achaeans land in Troy

Siege of the city of Troy begins

Surrounding towns start to be pillaged

Year 2-8: Trojan War stalemate

Andromache is sent to Troy and marries Hector

Palamedes is killed by Odysseus causing Nauplius to plan revenge

Astyanax is born

Year 9: Events of the Iliad

Patroclus, Hector, Antilochus, Achilles, and Paris are killed

Telamonian Ajax goes mad and commits suicide

Neoptolemus is brought to Troy

Year 10: Fall of Troy

Using the Trojan Horse, the Achaeans enter and destroy Troy

Most Trojans are killed or enslaved

Many more Achaeans die on the journey home

Agamemnon is murdered by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus

Diomedes is exiled from Argos

Menelaus and Helen voyage around the sea

Year 11: Odysseus travels around the sea

Most of Odysseus’s men die from Polyphemus and the Laestrygonians

Odysseus takes refuge on Aeaea with Circe

Year 12: Odysseus leaves Aeaea and faces more obstacles

The rest of Odysseus’s men die

Odysseus is trapped on Ogygia by Calypso

Year 13: Telegonus is born

Year 16: Suitors start vying for the hand of Penelope

Year 17: Events of the Oresteia

Orestes kills Aegisthus and Clytemnestra to avenge his father

Orestes is found innocent by Athena and becomes king of Mycenae

Menelaus and Helen return home to Sparta

Year 19: Events of the Odyssey

Telemachus travels to Pylos and Sparta

Odysseus is freed from Ogygia makes it home to Ithaca

Neoptolemus marries Hermione

Year 20: Orestes kills Neoptolemus

Peleus dies in grief

Orestes marries Hermione

Year 30: Events of the Telegony

Telegonus travels to Ithaca and accidentally kills his father

Penelope and Telemachus travel to Aeaea with him and are immortalised

Telegonus marries Penelope, and Telemachus marries Circe

[creepertrainz]

Anyone ever think about that book The Giver, and their systems of "birth mothers"? How girls would be designated as such at the age of 12, give birth three or four times, and then be demoted to labourers for the rest of their lives? Ever think about even in a society that pushed for sameness at the cost of everything else, a majority of girls and women would still be seen as no more than their ability to bear children? And how once they'd fulfilled their "purpose" they'd be given a job looked down upon regardless of what their actual aptitudes were?

I read that book a single time in school like ten years ago, yet that one detail always stuck out to me. How in a society that regularly practices eugenics, there was another undercurrent of prejudice that not even the main character notices. I like how whether or not the author intended this it's still an interesting point.

[deadbaguette]

Happy Birthday John Doe

[creepertrainz]

Why did I think this was transmasc Circe.

[creepertrainz]

Who in Greek mythology

[kyleesarthell]

Struggling recently with gender stuff, needed some positivity for the soul

[wolfythewitch]

Hungry

[too-many-blorbos]

Soulmates as a horror concept.

You WILL love this person. It doesn't matter who you loved before; any feelings you had, any promises you made, they will become inconsequential as soon as you lock eyes with the stranger Fate has picked for you.

There's no way to stop it.

There's no way to say "no."

You will meet someone and with a single glance, both of you will become someone new, someone who's now bound to this stranger whether you like it or not, want it or not.

Trapped in a dance together until the day you die.

[creepertrainz]

I feel so many Greek myths would work well with this. When fate and divine intervention are so important, it naturally lends to this concept.

Most obviously being Helen of Sparta. Imagine being happily married to Menelaus with your daughter Hermione, then one day your mind betrays you to a person you've just met. You go with him to Troy, supposedly by your own volition yet you know deep down this isn't what you want. You love him with all your heart but you don't want to, and the only way that can manifest is through resentment. You watch a chain reaction bring sorrow to all those around you, and people are all too quick to blame you. All while knowing that the goddess of love itself is pulling the strings.

And for a slightly less usual (and frankly more disgusting) example you have Pasiphaë aka the mother of the Minotaur. Imagine one day gaining an attraction, an urge to do something transgressive. And all rational parts of your brain are rightfully disgusted by the mere idea, yet you can't get that thought out of your head. Because after all, what is your willpower compared to that of the God of the Seas who wants nothing more but to humiliate you and your husband by proxy? And yet, the thought persists until you act upon it no matter how much you didn't truly want it.

I'd definitely read horror about this kind of "love" making people suffer (though probably not the latter one for obvious reasons).

[creepertrainz]

A little funny how often one of the most important locations in Homer's epic is sidelined or left out entirely.

Especially when you consider how his encounters with Polyphemus and Circe are generally expanded to be large parts of the story (instead of their more episodic format in the poem). Or how his crewmates, who were for the most part barely characters, get large sections (looking at you Epic: the Musical). Of course both of these are valid choices, but it is interesting how a pretty big part is rushed over.

[fawnblooms]

The king & queen of Ithaca 🤍

[creepertrainz]

So I know it's all but confirmed that Zendaya will be playing Athena in Nolan's Odyssey, but considering she's the only actor not to explicitly be given a role, and that Circe hasn't been shown in any of the promotional material despite being fairly important in the whole voyage, what is she's actually playing her instead. Wouldn't be the first casting assumptions about the film to be wrong. And it turns out that the entire film is another Troy situation where the major gods aren't explicitly shown. What happens then.

[creepertrainz]

So you can probably make a whole video about random details or oddities in the new trailer for The Odyssey, but I will say it was a little funny that the line "help me get home" was directed at Calypso. Like the one non-monster character Odysseus comes across that doesn't actively help him get home and in fact very much stops him from getting home. Idk I just found it amusing.

(yes I know she made him a sail, but that was after seven years of captivity and only after she was directly ordered by Olympus to let him leave, so a bit moot)

[autisticlittleguy]

"Grace Ryland is Rocky's dog" is such a funny fucking dynamic when you think about it

Eridians are further behind than humans technologically right? They dont have computers, relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. In fact, Eridians probably dont even know about the Big Bang because their atmosphere would filter out most of the cosmic microwave background radiation we use to detect it. On a human timeline, theyre anywhere between like early-mid 20th century. Rocky's basically a cosmonaut.

So the human civilization is pretty advanced from Rocky's perspective. Rationally he understands this. On a conceptual level he knows this to be true.

But at the same time... imagine youre one of the first ever cosmonauts to make it into space. Then you meet a 10 year old alien dog who cant do 2+2 without pulling out its calculator. It forgets everything constantly and has to keep notes everywhere, like it basically lives in Memento (2000). Also if it doesnt nap constantly it gets even stupider. And you somehow has to reconcile this with the fact that this dog has a better understanding of physics than your entire civilization does. Like the dog knows how the universe started.

[creepertrainz]

Low key me whenever the Riverlands are mentioned (I was a wiki trowler for years before I watched the series or read the books, and for some reason I did a shit ton of research on the Riverlands so now they're my Osmium)

[creepertrainz]

Greek mythology is fun because of how interconnected the family trees are. Like what do you mean that Medea and the Minotaur are first cousins?

And not even half cousins, their divine parents are full siblings (children of Helios and Perseis)

[creepertrainz]

Knowing those two, it would probably be something like:

"So Telegonus killed his father, and guess what"

"What?"

"He felt *bad* about it"

"Omg no way"

(yes I know they're both more complex than that, but at the end of the day Asterius ate people and Medea murdered her children, so they're not exactly prime examples of morality)

[creepertrainz]

Greek mythology is fun because of how interconnected the family trees are. Like what do you mean that Medea and the Minotaur are first cousins?

And not even half cousins, their divine parents are full siblings (children of Helios and Perseis)

[creepertrainz]

All I'm saying is, if Poseidon really wanted to punish Minos for not sacrificing the bull he gave him, he should've made HIM lust after it instead of his wife. Like absolutely no one would've let him forget that as long as he lived, and wouldn't risk creating a monster he could use as a living weapon.

[cauliflawava]

FOR GOD’S SAKE I HATE THAT FIRST PREVIEW NOW.

Here’s an attempt at redeeming myself!

Hopefully I don’t hate this one after 5 minutes… I’m finna delete the first one. That’s the last time I post before defining this dude’s muscles…

[creepertrainz]

Damn, Penelope is a very lucky lady.