So, I've talked before about how trying to assemble all the events leading up to and following the Trojan war onto a single timeline doesn't really make sense. (The Greeks didn't care and the events were patchedworked together over centuries of additions. It's fine.)
So, for example, the wedding where Paris has to pick "The Fairest" and gets promised Helen? That the marriage of Achilles' parents. And Achilles is at least a young man (older teen? He can still successfully disguise himself as a girl, so probably not growing a beard yet) when the war starts, so a decent gap of time.
And all the art always just shows everyone as like, lithe 20 somethings all the time, but, just....imagine.
Imagine that Paris is *young*, 10 or 12 maybe, when he's chosen as the mortal to settle this debate over the apple. He's just a kid, the youngest of Priams 50 sons, sent to die in the woods and raised as a shepard in secret to try to avoid a prophesy that he will be the end of Troy.
And here is pretty Aphrodite, promising him that when he's old enough to marry, when he's accepted as a proper prince of Troy, she'll give him the most beautiful mortal woman alive. It's a sacred promise.
But Helen hasn't been born yet. Aphrodite doesn't know- doesn't know the Zeus will father a mortal princess whose marriage will be a political crisis- whose marriage will need to be sealed with a treaty so that her hand won't be the prize of one war after another after another (what king wouldn't want a daughter of Zeus at his side, after all? Helen is kidnapped before she's old enough to wed by Theseus, yes that Theseus, for exactly that reason.) Aphrodite doesn't know that by the time this young boy becomes a young prince, Helen will be newly married (married, likely, fairly young, to stop any more kidnapping attempts.)
But a sacred oath is a sacred oath.
And Paris grows up. And Helen is born. And Paris is recognized as a prince. And Helen is married. And maybe Paris had forgotten all about that strange dreamy afternoon when he was asked an impossible question and promised a fairy tale when he was a lonely little boy. And Helen, safely married, a young mother, finally feels safe knowing that she is safe from being kidnapped again because a treaty binds her marriage.
But a sacred oath is a sacred oath. And a prophesy is a prophesy.
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