Beware the darkness of dragons

The Ocean at Dusk -  Kate Jarvik Birch 

American , b. 1977 -

For more than two and a half years, you have stood by me through some of the hardest moments of my life. Your support, your words, and your kindness helped us keep going when we were close to breaking. Because of you, we were able to hold on, and I will never forget that.

But the truth is, our story is not over yet.

We have lost everything, our home, our source of income, and the stability we once had. It feels like we are not just starting from zero, but trying to rise from below it.

Now things are even harder with my father’s illness. He needs ongoing care and treatment, while we are facing a complete lack of income. Even covering our basic daily needs has become a real struggle.

We are doing everything we can to stay strong, but we cannot do it alone anymore.

I am not asking for much, just for you to stand by us as you always have. Any support, no matter how small, can make a real difference. It can help us cover my father’s treatment, provide our basic needs, and help us keep going.

And if you are unable to donate, simply sharing our story could help it reach someone who can.

Thank you for being there for us and for not leaving us alone.

"what if I've read part of it" if it's a large enough part that you would consider yourself to Have Read It in general contexts, then it counts. if it's not, then it doesn't. only you can be the judge of that, but I'm not giving you a nuance button.

any translations count, but abridged retellings don't

hi it's me op that's my combo!

firstly, i don't think i've ever particularly thought of the odyssey as more iconic than the iliad, so that's the exact kind of cultural attitude towards the texts that prompted me to make this poll; it seemed from conversations that @postarcadian was having in the notes of related posts that in north america at least, it's very dominant, but i wanted to see how widespread this was. i think this particular dominance or preference is not global. in england, for example, you wouldn't read the odyssey in school unless a) your school offered classical civilisation as an elective subject (already a minority of schools) and b) opted to do the odyssey-specific module (only one of lots of modules). if they don't do class civ, you probably wouldn't read any ancient texts in school!

my school did class civ but not the odyssey module, so it never came up, which brings me onto:

this is the module for which i read the aeneid and the iliad when i was 17 and in secondary school. we read the whole thing although the commentary passages were from selected books. the odyssey was not relevant to this module and we did not have time to read it unnecessarily. but you can see based on the themes and focus of the modules why the aeneid-iliad combo would be chosen!

(sidenote to the person in the notes who said they think you need graduate level study to understand the cultural context and references in the aeneid... i don't think you do? they're teaching this to 17-year-olds reading in translation with no latin background? i mean, obviously if you do it at a graduate level you're going to understand it more and in greater depth and get more nuance and whatever. but it's not Impossible To Comprehend The Aeneid And Its Themes as a layperson. can attest that 17-year-old me managed it well enough)

now obviously i'm 30 now so there's been loads of time to read the odyssey since then for funsies. and i've had it in my house since 2018. and i've started it multiple times. and i just can't get through it tbh. one day i'll get there maybe. but as a medievalist the latin texts were always a lot more relevant (medieval authors primarily had access to the classical world via latin) and i work on heroic literature of a very particular sort so i've ended up more in the aeneid - statius - latin histories end of things insofar as i look at anything classical (which isn't very much)

i have however read Merugud Uilix which is the medieval irish version of the odyssey and which is completely bonkers and absurd and absolutely nothing like the actual Odyssey

as far as the Ancient Greeks were concerned, the Iliad was THE epic poem. the story of the Trojan War was The foundational myth cycle and the Iliad was The Trojan War poem. it was & tbh is generally considered to be the superior of the two. if I HAD to say which one is more 'iconic' I would point to the Iliad.

I think it's fair to say, the reason the Odyssey has become so widely studied at school level is because it is, to be blunt, 'easier'. it is structurally much more like a modern novel, it has a relatable protagonist in Odysseus, it's got a bunch of fantasy adventures in it, many of which are straightforward stories w clear and easy to understand metaphors and/or morals.

the Iliad in contrast is, if you like, a 'true' epic poem? it doesn't really have a conventional A->B->C plot and a lot of it is 'guys you've never heard of killing other guys you've never heard of'. I would say it is significantly more esoteric. Speaking from personal experience: i read both as a teenager and had a massively easier time with the Odyssey.

in terms of the emotional impact of them as works, obviously YMMV but to me, the Odyssey is a fun romp and the Iliad is like getting hit by a truck.

Two men are scheduled for execution on July 28th, 2026, a week from today. One is an 80 year old man (do authorities really need to kill this already imprisoned elderly man to prevent further harm, or does an authoritarian government perhaps have alternate motives for normalizing and desensitizing the public to law enforcement as the arbiter of life and death?), and the other is a man who may yet be proven innocent.

The trauma of a prison sentence cannot be undone, but should the prisoner be found misjudged and acquitted, prison time can be compensated for through a hefty legal settlement (though not without a fight). The death penalty, however, can never be recompensed. If the government executes an innocent man, there is no chance that he receives justice for their mistake. Death is final.