You Are A Product Of All Those Who Came Before You

Changed by name for a day. Was marvelpjostarwarsobssessed Hey you can call me Rhymes! I’m Pakistani-American and Muslim! She/her. I post about Star Wars, Marvel, PJO, Grishaverse, Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Spiderverse, DC and a lot of other stuff. Black Lives Matter and if you don’t agree get off my blog. Racists, TERFS and anyone spitting hate, get the fuck off my page. I’m obsessed with Space. I love science. Just send me space/science stuff and I cry tears of joy and start rambling about science and space and the stuff you sent me. If you ever find my science posts you know what I’m talking about.

[kohinoors]

Msmxrvel -> Battinsonns

obsessed with this miserable little white man

[thebctman]

I have joined my friend in this endeavor

milf-ahsoka —> thebctman

[whyenn-reader]

you are not immune to inventing an arbitrary set of rules that only you have to adhere to

[speakeasier]

and this is why cabo verde were the real winners of the world cup.

[odettewagner]

ALSO VERY IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER that Borja Iglesias, who was the only man to join the strike against the Spanish National team after the Luis Rubiales sexual assault incident at the Women's World Cup in 2023, and who was clowned for it and told he would never play for Spain again, is now a world champion

[superohclair]

lamine yamal's little brother repping the most important merch of the cup: a paw patrol hat

[all-too-unwell-13]

you’ve met me at a very spanish time in my life

[abkvs]

futbol torture nexus

[noah-wyles]

this is how argentina's legacy ends not with a whimper but with a big loud funny bang

[caljordan]

and now Lamine Yamal must participate in an UNICEF's photoshoot with a baby that will defeat him in 19 years

[jeezilikesports]

YESSS

[loveridden1999]

when england lose, women bruise

[eylih05]

What Otto Hightower's parenting and a failed situationship do to a homosexual:

[thebctman]

I really love how this movie highlighted the concept of xenia and ultimately what happens when you break it. I know it’s not ultimately very accurate to the story but I will say that it had the heart of Emily Wilson’s translation.

The ending of her introduction to the story talks about what it means to welcome a stranger in your world, and what that means in a modern world.

“There is a stranger outside your house. He is old, ragged, and dirty. He is tired. He has been wandering, homeless, for a long time, perhaps many years. Invite him inside. You do not know his name. He may be a thief. He may be a murderer. He may be a god. He may remind you of your husband, your father, or yourself. Do not ask questions. Wait. Let him sit on a comfortable chair and warm himself beside your fire. Bring him some food, the best you have, and a cup of wine. Let him eat and drink until he is satisfied. Be patient. When he is finished, he will tell his story. Listen carefully. It may not be as you expect.”

Some of the best lines in her translation are about homelessness and hospitality. The idea of xenia is incredibly common across many cultures and it was so interesting to see how Nolan tackled as someone whose culture has an incredibly similar concept. Tying it within the Sea Peoples and the Bronze Age Collapse was such a GENIUS move and it was very well thought out.

If dishonor wins the war, wins spoils and recognition, then what stops it from spreading? To twist the idea of xenia from not only on Paris but onto Odysseus was so incredible. It starts with Paris, then Agamemnon, then Odysseus, then Eurylochus and his men, and then onto Ithaca and the world itself. When you break the notions of honor, you can’t go back and it can only spread and create a new type of war and the destruction of old civilizations.

I also thought how it was super interesting how Nolan tied the morality within in the Iliad into the Odyssey and how haunted Odysseus is. He’s tortured in the book yes, but more so due to his men and the time he’s missed. He takes pride in his time and his actions in the Trojan War. To take that and twist it into him feeling incredibly guilty for Troy was so well done considering how throughout the Odyssey, he takes on the burden of the guilt through his own actions. When he reunites with Telemachus, he says something along the line that “I am the one who is the cause for all of your suffering”.

Of course he would take the burden of Troy onto himself. This isn’t a story where he takes pride in his part of Trojan War because this movie focuses on the fact that he joined this war without choice. That he led his men there without choice. Nolan chose to move away from ancient concepts of honor and put in a modern lenses.

The most interesting thing for me was that they used the replacement of Athena’s temple for Odysseus killing Astyanax, Hector’s infant son. Some versions have Achilles’ son do it, but either way Odysseus is the one to either do it by throwing him off a building or argue for his death. But the Odyssey itself doesn’t mention it. I think the movie cut it out because it would either foreshadow what happened in Athena’s temple, or because there just wasn’t enough time to explain it considering Hector is already dead by this point bc of Achilles, who is also cut out of this film.

It would’ve been his greatest sin and the most tragic curse he put upon himself so like I truly wonder why Nolan didn’t include that out of curiosity.

My favorite change is the Trojan Horse themselves. Odysseus is Athena’s champion and I believe in the original story, she helps give him the idea. To twist it into him having the idea gives him more agency and creates a greater divide between him and Athena. He came into her temple, and killed her priestesses. He came into the city with an offering for her, and then destroyed the temple that honoured her. Athena is his guilt, his pride and his cunning all in one.

The addition of Sinon was also very cool considering they’re first cousins and that adds greater guilt upon Odysseus for killing his only blood family there. It’s not just about a boy being cheated, it’s about the fact that Odysseus led his baby cousin out there, and he lied to his blood. That he promised his uncle safety and then he has the knowledge that his cousin and his uncle both died in pain and without justice.

Overall, I love the Iliad more than I love the Odyssey because a lot of the epic’s themes are actually used in this movie and to see how Nolan portrayed the sacking of Troy was incredible and insanely different from previous interpretations. I think it’s my favorite part of the movie because of how incredibly well done it was. The true epic is lost but we have info on it from the Aeneid and other summaries from other sources like the Trojan Women.

He’s recontextualized some aspects of how I view the Odyssey and I’m very excited to see this movie again in 70mm on Tuesday and for me to reread the Odyssey again as well.

[thebctman]

Above all, I think Nolan’s way of tying xenia into the plot was beautiful because of Emily Wilson’s translation. Her introduction build the foundation of the story and Nolan’s as well.

And I think that in a time of rising cruelty, of a lack of hospitality, where strangers are being stolen off the streets, and where rioters go into the streets and burn immigrant houses down, this movie was needed.

My favorite line from Emily Wilson’s translation is:

The worst thing humans suffer is homelessness; we must endure this because of desperate hunger; we must endure, as migrants with no home.

[cerusee]

Okay. For my money, the entire thesis of Chris Nolan’s 2026 film The Odyssey is that society chokes and sputters and dies when we abuse, ignore, or violate social norms like the laws of hospitality. That is not really what The Odyssey (the book/poem) is about, but I can clearly see why in the horror that is the 2020s, someone could read The Odyssey and go oh my god that’s a lot of bad dropping in. That’s a lot of bad visits. That’s a clear vision of how the loss of social norms and cohesion fucks you up and how war, literal, brutal war, is a terrible wound that destroys your humanity and your understanding of what civilization and society is. I don’t know that the iteration of Greek society that ultimately birthed the poem would agree with Nolan’s take, but I think this movie is quite ideologically coherent, that Nolan knew exactly what he was trying to say with each and every adaptational change, and I think he wasn’t nuts for using one of the most famous classical western civilization works as a way to make that argument.

[orangepeelshortbreadcookies]

Having Helen and Clytemnestra be identical twins is genius because how poetic and fitting is it that Agamemnon, who used Helen as an excuse to start The Trojan War, who instigated the deaths of thousands and sacrificed his own daughter for his ambitions, only to fall by someone who bears the same face of the woman he politicized?

[thebctman]

I actually really liked how Nolan introduced the concept of Xenia within the movie and ultimately how he tied that into the Trojan War.

Like yes it’s been around for 3000 years that Paris broke the rules of xenia when he kidnapped Helen, but I love how Nolan also spun that on Odysseus with his Trojan Horse as well. Odysseus broke the rules, and with that he introduced a new standard of warfare and social interaction. He tied into the Sea Peoples which I thought was really interesting.

Zeus’s Law is broken within Ithaca’s palace and it is broke in Troy, and it is broken in Sparta, and everyone gets their comeuppance.

I actually really loved how they handled Odysseus PTSD within Troy itself and I think Nolan did it that way because of Emily Wilson’s introduction. I finished her translation of the Odyssey the night before I saw the movie and I was incredibly interested in how she wrote about the violence of war and how it was societally viewed. There were standards set in place even in its brutality, like with how they had temporary truces, one on one battles, and time to collect the dead. Brutality is accepted, but what does that actually do to a mind?

And within her translation, Odysseus is a shell of a man at times. He cries every night, he’s known as lamentful and sorrowful. There is a line when he first meets Telemachus for the first time, and he states something along the lines that he is the cause of all his sorrow. He blames himself for so much, and of course he would take the burden of Troy upon himself as well.

It’s more of a modern interpretation but I think he would be haunted by Troy. He’s haunted by the innocents that died, and the people that wear their faces. And I think that although they didn’t include the story of Astyanax, the Athena reveal was insanely well done and served its purpose.

The movie makes a point to show that dishonor spreads when you stop following the rules of hospitality and the rules of honor. It’s Paris, it’s Agamemnon, it’s Odysseus, it’s Eurylochus, it’s the rest of his men, and it’s Ithica’s men as well. It all just spreads when you introduce something new and something cruel into the game.

The Troy sequences were arguably the best of the movie and it was just insane to watch in IMAX