🔴REC

In Euripides' The Trojan Women the herald Talthybius reveals to Andromache that Odysseus has convinced the council to have the child thrown from the walls, and the child is in this way killed.

Another version is given in Iliou persis, in which Odysseus kills Astyanax with his own bare hands.

Honestly, I don’t understand why people claim that Odysseus felt guilty about Astyanax. At least in the sources I’ve read, there’s never been any indication of that. Ody really wanted to kill Astyanax more than anyone else in the entire myths.

It states that Neoptolemus violently snatches Astyanax from the bosom of his nurse and throws him off the walls of Troy. What part of "Little Ilias" are you quoting?

The part where Odysseus was the one conspiring to murder Atyanax comes from the lips of Talthybius in the tragedy by Euripides "Trojan Women"

For Iliou Persis we have only one phrase as to how Odysseus kills Astyanax. No mention to any emotion whatsoever. So the context is lost.

As to whether he felt bad it is stated in Homer when he cries when he hears on Troy out of guilt. We can imagine Odysseus playing an active role to the whole thing without making him a psychopath that felt nothing when clearly Homer states is not the case. Mind you even others didn't

It's a terrible act. Odysseus does not lack in blame, but he's not a particularly "evil" among his peers: they all agreed to the same. I think it's also important to consider the context of The Trojan Women as a whole: many classicist consider The Trojan Women to be really close antiwar commentary (or as close as it could have been at those times). The Peloponnesian War had already raged on for more than a decade when the play was first performed, and it was a play about the suffering of war victims, performed for an Athenian audience who had the Peloponnesian War very much fresh in their minds. Arguably, demonising Odysseus and the Greek assembly in this instance is exactly part of the intent, since much suffering had come from this war and Euripides may have wanted the audience to think of how cruel decisions made in war can be and how much suffering comes to war victims because of these decisions. Not just Odysseus, but all the Greeks in the Trojan Women. I'll also leave this interesting quote on more of the potential context of this particular choice here:

Decisions are made by the casting of lots or by the will of an army “council,” a democratic body (the Greek word used for it at line 721 emphasizes its universal membership). This council, urged on by the wily Odysseus, cruelly decrees that the infant Astyanax must die, hurled from whatever part of Troy’s walls remains standing. Euripides may here be commenting (as he certainly did in two later plays, Iphigenia in Aulis and Orestes) on the state of the Athenian democracy in its post-Periclean phase, in which the Assembly, made up of all male citizens, often lacked direction or too quickly gave in to anger when it was thwarted, as it did in the case of the Melians. — Mary Lefkowitz & James Romm, The Greek Plays, Introduction to Euripides' Trojan Women

Homer’s Odysseus:

oh... i accidentally killed sarpedon??? i'm not built for violence, really. that's achilles. i guess he's always protecting me... i love him, i can't make myself argue with him— i'm so in love with him i don't know to be angry at him. ever.

patroclus in the iliad:

*invents gamer's rage by killing clysonysmus*

{kill count: so high that homer's just listing names at one point}

*kills sarpedon and then KILLS ANYBODY WHO TRIES TO TAKE HIS BODY* (the dead man's father ended up intervening i believe)

"hey patroclus... you're crying like a girl what's wrong??" "what's wrong? what's wrong??? what's wrong is yOU MOTHERFU—"

*knocks hector's charioteer onto the floor with a stone that fucking kills him* 10/10 my guy that was a perfect dive!! trojans seem awfully good at diving out of their chariots, don't you think??