Is it only me who thinks Helenos was tortured into prophetizing for the Greeks after he got captured?
Like, even if you go with the version where he and Deiphobos contend over Helen after Paris’ death and him leaving because he’s angry he didn’t get her, why the hell would be willingly sell out his family, his city, and a whole lot of allied peoples, for her? I refuse to reduce him to some sort of petty “I didn’t get the pussy so now everyone will get it” asshole who would hate his own family and a whole lot of innocent people so much he’d just... willingly reveal what obstacles are still in the way.
And I seriously don’t think he would be so naive as to think that these people would be willing to give either him or his family or the population in general some sort of mercy if he cooperated. (Like, no one stopped Achilles from attempting to desecrate his brother’s corpse for several days, just for starters.)
Relatedly, I’d be far more willing to headcanon that he was killed after the war was over rather than that he went with Neoptolemus and then ended up free and married to Andromache. Because if everyone’s so zealous about the possibility of survivors/allies rallying around Astyanax that they toss a fucking toddler from the ramparts to his death, then you don’t allow a full grown man (and his potential offspring), someone who, on top of that, has prophetic powers and would then be able to more easily steer any followers towards success, out in the wild after you wiped out as much of the rest of the royal family as you reasonably could. (Which would be all of them aside from Aeneas and his family.)
