#ianac

[lucillewalterblack-main]

every time I see a scholar going "oh the Iliad lets us see that everyone involved in a war suffers in the same way and challenges us to have compassion and empathy for our enemies!" I find myself wondering what, exactly, other people are doing when they read the Epic Cycle

[lucillewalterblack-main]

my hot take is that we are never going to be able to adapt the Homeric cycle in a way that fully embraces How The Old Greeks Would Feel About It while also being a good story for contemporary audiences, so what we should be doing is embracing the process of authentically adapting character motivations and character attitudes and cultural norms while letting modern sensibilities and morals dictate how we feel about who’s the hero or the villain and who’s a fuckboy and who isn’t. we aren’t ever going to convince modern audiences (or ourselves) of the old values being right (and in many cases I do not agree with Mycenaean and Ancient Greek values! I think their takes were bad many times per Homer reread!) so we should stop trying. I personally no longer care if I’m “supposed” to (for example) see Hektor as heroic. by my own values he isn’t heroic, and trying to convince me that he is will require me to be More Misogynistic in ways I can’t stomach. like to an extent we just have to say “some things cannot be brought authentically into the present” and cut our losses.