I'm getting sick of the "Penelope's Spartan so she found Odysseus killing the suitors hot" or that she enjoys bloodshed because she's Spartan, and just people ignoring what she has gone through.
The suitors made her life hell. She's not really gaining anything through marrying one of them. They see her as a way to elevate their status and a woman they want in their beds. They disrespect her and take advantage of her hospitality, breaking the law of Xenia. They are a danger to Telemachus. She is told in the Odyssey that the suitors plot to murder her son and she breaks down.
If anything, Penelope would feel relief seeing the suitors gone and Odysseus being back. Like a weight had been lifted off her chest and she could breathe for the first time in 20 years since Odysseus had left.
She could be horrified by the idea of the slaughter but still feel glad they're gone. To reduce her to being Spartan, which she's not even from militaristic Sparta, just shows a lack of understanding of her character and just ignores the hardships she's gone through and her trauma.
Tbh, in the Odyssey the killing of the suitors was not even seen as something surprising or unusual.
I mean, it was exceptional that Odysseus basically did it alone (or with the help of just a couple of people). But the murder itself was totally expected. Actually people even told the suitors several times that they should stop behave this way, or, when Odysseus come back, he will kill them all. And so he did.
Because of thet I don't even see Penelope having any sort of strong reaction about this violence. Husband back? Great. Suitors gone? Good. He brutally murdered them all? Well, duh, that's what men do, they kill their enemies.
Honestly I think that the whole idea of finding violence hot is actually the sign of more refined society, where violence is more rare and is seen as exotic because of that.






















