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Painted Bankai Rukia, the prettiest to ever exist ❄️

thinking about how Hector was "man-killer" to the Greeks, but "horse-breaker" to the Trojans. how it takes tenderness and patience and devotion to get a wild horse to trust you, let alone let you ride it. how hector's life and relationships to others, even the gods, are defined by devotion, and how it wins him both honor and his own death. how hector thinks he can approach achilles like a spooked horse, but achilles is a dog and not only a dog, but a dog that has nothing left. how even the wildest horse has the desire for food and comfort, but hector has never met a horse that wants to die. anyways how's your day going

local-queer-classicist

Also that the last few words of the entire Iliad are the epithet “Ἕκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο” (“Hector, tamer of horses”). For those that don’t know much about Homeric Greek: both epithets of Hector would’ve fit the meter of this line, so the author could’ve ended the book with either one.

After all of the death and destruction and carnage of the story, the entire Iliad is closed with a reminder of who this man was, at his core: not the man-killing warrior described on the battlefield (which, culturally speaking, would likely have been the ideal description, conferring on him the most honor). He was just a guy who liked horses. He was just a dude, who loved his family and his people and horses, and I don’t think there’s much doubt which of these two epithets Hector himself would have preferred to be remembered by.

Unlike Achilles, Hector was never in this for glory. He would’ve been perfectly happy to be left alone with his wife to raise his son and tame his horses in peace, but fate would not allow him that. However, Achilles may be the main character, and he may (slightly) outlive his Trojan counterpart, but only one of them gets the last line of the book, and that guy is Hector, tamer of horses.