#odysseus

[weepingwidar]

Alekos Fassianos (Greek, 1935-2022) - Odysseus and the Sirens (n.d.)

[starlord-s]

taking matters into my own hands because there’s barely any odyssey fics and i need to be self indulgent

he has been home for two days. the suitors have fled, your kingdom beginning to return to how it was before he left. you haven’t felt this content in years.

the fire crackles, the only sound that can be heard except for both of your steady breaths. odysseus’ fingers absentmindedly trace your bare arm, your head pressed against his chest as if you’re scared that this might not be real.

“i thought of you every day.” he breaks the silence.

you shift slightly so you can look at this man. the grey that now dusts his beard and his head, the lines on his face from the years that you’ve lost together. he’s as handsome as the day he left you, but the years have taken their toll on him. you can see in his eyes the burdens of war that he carries. the one to make it home.

“my love…” you say softly, trying to reassure him that he doesn’t need to prove it to you.

“you kept me going. my saviour even when i thought all hope was lost.”

the furs that surround the two of you fall as you make your way up his body, lips finding his as you caress his face in your hands.

you know that the bubble the two of you are in will burst, and you will eventually live a life in exile together. there’s much to be done before then, but you can’t bring yourself to care when the love of your life made his way back to you. he did unspeakable things just to hold you like this again.

“i love you.” odysseus whispers against your mouth, hand finding its way between your thighs to remind you just how much.

[sparkskun]

[randomgreekfandomspals]

Y/N: Thanks, dad

Y/N: ...what? Why is everyone looking at me?

Polites: You just called Odysseus dad. You said, "Thanks, dad".

Y/N: What? No, I didn't. I said, "thanks man".

Odysseus: Do you see me as a father figure, Y/N?

Y/N: No! If anything, I see you as a bother figure because you're always bothering me!

Eurylochus: Hey, show your father some respect

[quidam-sirenae]

Fuck it odyssey review

If Nolan wrote the Odyssey, the first line would be “Tell me about a powerful man.” That’s the first thing the film explains to you: Odysseus is powerful.

But powerful isn’t complicated, and Nolan doesn’t want to write about a complicated man, as evidenced by his omission of the “nobody” scene that the Odyssey has historically been so famous for. Nolan wants to write the same film that he’s written before: one about a powerful man.

I had a professor who liked to say that the bible was the oldest story in the world: the archetypal story of excellence that gets told again and again and again. I’ve had other people tell me that the oldest story in the world is the Hero’s Journey, or the etiological explanation for the world, or even the homecoming that the Odyssey is supposed to be, but it’s not. The oldest story in the world is that a man gets angry. A man gets angry, and he hurts a woman.

It’s a mundane story, and it’s the one that gets told again and again and again, and it’s the first line of the Iliad, the sister story to the Odyssey: Tell me, Muse, about a man who got angry.

The story Nolan tells is not of a complicated man, it’s of an angry man who hurts a woman. And it’s boring. I’ve watched men hurt women in film and in books and in real life and anywhere there is a story to be told, and it’s so commonplace that it puts me to sleep.

This is most evident in the scene where Odysseus “outsmarts” (and I use that word very loosely) Circe by threatening to kill her sister, who, by this point in the film, is a bird.

But I expected the Odyssey to be a Nolan-style blockbuster, so why am I so critical?

Christopher Nolan spoke in several interviews before the debut of the film about how he wanted his retelling of the Odyssey to be inclusive- and certainly he achieves this in some ways, but unfortunately, he does actual feminist retellings of the Odyssey a disservice when he claims that his is one of them.

What Nolan made was a sanitized, socially acceptable version of the Odyssey, where women shout at men but can’t do much else, and appear only as accessories or paragons for men to seek after. Nolan’s downfall is that he can’t conceive of more than one kind of power- the superhero kind- and both the women of the Odyssey and Odysseus lack that kind of power in the text. That’s what makes it interesting.

Anne Hathaway plays her role as well as ever, but the way Penelope is portrayed is laughable. Her weaving looks terrible, and she displays none of the cleverness that attracted Odysseus to her in the first place. Nolan wants to write a Penelope that isn’t afraid to bear her teeth, but he ended up with a grieving wife that’s more bark than bite, the exact opposite of how I would have liked to see Penelope portrayed.

I was originally excited to see that the new Odyssey movie would focus more on Ithaca than Odysseus, but when this is the Ithaca that we see, it’s barely worth it. One of the most memorable scenes was with Lupita Nyong’o, and the double casting of Helen and Clytemnestra. She speaks a wonderful five lines before disappearing from the film completely, leaving the men to have a real conversation.

The other most memorable scene goes to the excellent monologue that Elliot Page delivered in his role as Sinon- a part I was originally confused about, since even I couldn’t remember who exactly Sinon was- but Elliot page truly outshone every other character in his role.

After all the talk and subsequent failure to make a feminist Odyssey, I was surprised to see that Nolan was able to make an inclusive leap that many filmmakers have been unable to: he cast a transgender man in the role of a man. There is no hesitancy with Page’s role as a man, and no insinuation that he belongs to a different category of man than Odysseus does: Page simply plays the role of Sinon, a boy sent off to the Trojan war too young. I find myself thinking that the complicated man referenced was not, in fact, Damon’s character, but instead the previously-unknown Sinon.

In fact, Sinon was the saving grace of the movie. When Odysseus shoves the lot that Sinon drew into Antinous’s mouth as he dies, that truly felt like the resolution of the movie. I barely remember the reunion he had with Telemachus and Penelope, because the movie felt like it was already over by the time he had Antinous on the floor.

The Odyssey could have been a great movie. It could have even been a good movie, but Nolan was hampered by his one-dimensional idea of what strength is, and tried to fit Odysseus into a category that he doesn’t belong in. Call me back, though, when Christopher Nolan debuts his Aeneid blockbuster- I think he could really get some mileage out of that.

[potato-goose]

Ahh yes. My first crossover AU. Deltarune x The Odyssey!! (specifically the Epic the Musical version. Don't hurt me) I'm gonna keep drawing this AU even if this get absolutely zero attention. yippeeee!! Blehhh. I'll add more lore onto here,,, later If you have any ideas for the AU, comment away!!

[soundbuster]

When you think of the Iliad, what's the first scene that comes to mind?

Achilles and Agamemnon's fight

The Catalogue of Ships

Menelaus vs. Paris

Diomedes vs. Aphrodite and Ares

Hector with Andromache and Astyanax

Odysseus' and Diomedes' night raid

Hera seducing Zeus

Patroclus' day in the spotlight and death

The battle of the gods (Theomachy)

Achilles vs. Hector

Priam begging Achilles for Hector's body

Anything else! (Comments below)

Remaining time: 6 days 16 hours

Unfortunately, I couldn't add more, but here's some other options

Achilles' new armor and shield

Patroclus' funeral games

Odysseus visiting Achilles

Nestor being Nestor

Achilles' rampage and battle with Scamander.