My Tragic Flaw Is That I Wanna Be Tumblr Famous

I know a lot of people prefer to think of the Greek pantheon as murderous, omnipotent rapists, but while there are some classical texts which support that view, they rarely represent how actual believers imagined them.

Don’t get me wrong, those stories were still based on real spoken traditions, but they were often purposefully altered to use the gods as allegories for corruption of power and the cruelty of the universe.

For most of the people that believed in them, they were figures that were looked up upon as moral examples. Sure they had tumultuous love lives, interpersonal disagreements, and the occasional mistake, but so do the best of us!

And so does every other pantheon, even the Abrahamic ones. Well, maybe not so much the love lives, but surely the fact that Olympians were more sexually adventurous shouldn’t disqualify them as moral compasses, should it?

(I mean, a lot of puritanical Christians have certainly tried to make that argument in their portrayals of Hellenist belief systems, but I wouldn’t trust them to be unbiased.)

But that’s exactly why I liked this movie. The characters treated the gods and their divine rules the way that actual believers would - with respect and sincerity - and those that didn’t were shown as likely being agnostic.

In fact, the irony of worshipping the gods without following their teachings is underlined several times in the film when the characters on opposing sides of conflicts have to be reminded that they both claim to be beholden to the same religion.

like. we can defy the christian god, in a way, because we can choose to not do what he says we ought to. sure. but we cannot defy greek gods in the same way, because the god is not just an entity that commands you but the very thing you are doing. apollo does not just send plagues, he is plague. you know apollo is real because there is plague. plague is not apollo acting in the world, it is an instance of apollo, in the same way that insight is athena, love is aphrodite, harvest is demeter, storms are zeus. gods are not commanding nature and sending signs and acting upon the world, because signs and nature and human nature are themselves the gods. the gods cannot be absent, because we still get ideas, and harvest, and go to war, and feel desire, and hunt. the gods cannot be defied because you cannot defy "getting ideas" or "harvesting" or "having sex" or "dying." to attempt to is entirely futile. like you cannot defy poseidon because you cannot defy the sea. you cannot defy aphrodite because you cannot defy love and reproduction. nature and human nature are unbeatable, and so the gods are unbeatable, because they are nature and human nature.

Like, literally every idea you present as being either “inherently Christian” or “inherently Hellenistic” are, just, universal questions about existence that appear in every religion.

There are Christians who believe that every death, life, misfortune, stroke of luck, and natural occurrence are all personal extensions of and decided by a single omnipotent and omniscient all-encompassing being.

Similarly, there were many ancient Hellenists who venerated the gods not as the sentient personifications of abstract concepts like the sky or the sea, but rather divine guardians of justice and generosity within each of their fields, working in distant and mysterious ways.

Be trying to intellectualize Hellenism, you’re being extremely reductive, in a matter that boils down to “Christianity is when there’s one god whose will you can follow by being good or bad, and Hellenism is when there’s many gods whose mercy you have to pray for to survive”.

Ive seen a lot of criticism for it, especially here on Tumblr, and I understand it, but there's something we need to take into account.

This is an adaptation of the classic, it is not going to be the same. This is not the classic odyssey, and I believe the major difference is that it is teaching a different lesson/theme.

The classic's lesson/theme is to not be hubristic, do not think yourself above the gods, and do not make stupid decisions based on pride.

The movie's lesson/theme is not to do things you would not like to be done to you, to follow Zeus's law, and that society falls when people do not treat eachother well.

So the movie is written differently, it focuses much less on Odysseus's hubris, and more on what he did in Troy.

I think one of the biggest criticisms Ive seen is actually one that supports my point on the movie being written with a different message. And that is the exclusion of the nobody scene.

In the classic, that was Odysseus's big moment of hubris, it was the moment that dammed him and his crew. It is a key point in the theme of the classic odyssey.

In the movie, it is not there, because it is not needed for the new theme. The key point in the movie is what Odysseus did to Troy, how he broke the rules and did something incredibly cruel, and how he continued some of that cruelty, how he became "the people from the sea". The nobody scene was cut out because it did not fit the new theme.

Now I hear you asking, why would they change the theme? Wanna know why? Because the world has changed a lot since the classic was written. The movie was written for a modern audience, and the classic for an ancient one. (Note that I am not saying that the classic is no longer applicable or good, I love the classic).

When you look at the two themes I have presented, which one is more applicable to a modern world? Don't belive yourself better than the gods, or treat others how you want to be treated? I think the second one applies to the world we currently live in much more.

The story the classic odyssey told is one we all know well, and the movie decided to do what a good adaptation should and it made it more applicable to a modern audience, and made interesting and creative changes.

Ok, Ill wrap this up now, but one last thing.

I don't think the type of people on Tumblr were the target audience. And thats ok. The target audience was not those of us that love Greek mythology and Epic the musical (both of which I adore), and thats ok. We don't need to be the target audience. The target audience was mainly people who love action movies, epic adventures, and have not touched Greek mythology since high-school. And thats ok. Who knows, maybe this movie will get more people into Greek mythology and history, and they'll learn more, and thats awesome!

- The body horror of Circe transforming the men into pigs was beautifully disgusting

- I loved how the existence of the gods was never fully confirmed or denied. Were the storms Poseidon’s wrath or just bad weather? Was Athena appearing to Odysseus with the face of the woman he let die or was he hallucinating out of guilt? Magic clearly existed, because we had a cyclops and a witch and shades of the Underworld, but there’s magic and then there’s divinity. Is everything they say about the gods true or are they just an excuse?

- The removal of the Nobody scene was necessary actually. In the poem, Odysseus gives Polyphemus his real name in a moment of hubris and this causes all the problems later on because now Poseidon knows the name of the man that disrespected him. In the film, the problems are caused by the Greeks breaking Xenia by invading Troy. Keeping the Nobody scene would have detracted from the root cause of all the problems.

- I could write an entire essay about how cleverly Nolan uses events from the Odyssey to make a point about today’s society:

The Trojan War was about trade routes and Helen was just an excuse — just as wars today are waged for oil and resources, and governments give excuses to their citizens to make it seem better.

“The people from the sea” are feared as an invasion of bogeymen threatening innocents, but they’re actually just desperate men trying to find safety.

The Greeks pillage an island and ask “why didn’t you just give us what we wanted? We’re the good guys!” while the village burns behind them, not realising that to the villagers, Greeks and Trojans are all the same.

- Whoever let Anne Hathaway freeze her forehead should be fed to Polyphemus

no monsters are shown before the point of that journey, nor after. was his drugged mind filling in the gaps with mythical elements replacing the perils that were too traumatic to relive?

was the cyclops just a sick, furless, one eyed bear that blocked their way out of a cave that a shepherd used to live in? were the ruthless laestrygonians just some tall, hostile town guards with better armor and superior knowledge of the forest terrain?

was circe just a superstitious herbalist skilled in hypnotic poisons and cures? was tiresias just a dying old charlatan who used the gossip he’d heard to pass on advice “from the afterlife”?

was charybdis a whirlpool that forced them to sail down a dangerous ravine? was scylla the rocks that fell on the ship as it stirred the waters, crushing six sailors to death?

were the cows carrying some disease that caused the men to drown? was circe just a lone fisher, willing to entertain the crazed delusions of the survivor she found and fell in love with?

were all these perils enough to daze and kill dozens of trained soldiers that were lost, dehydrated, starving, traumatized, and tired from a long journey and a decade at war?

was the reason odysseus’ memories came back wrong caused by the fact that his mind couldn’t accept the legendary warriors that conquered Troy being wiped out by a handful of minor misfortunes?

I posted this originally on Letterboxd, but I want to share with all my mutuals as well

Spoiler Alert!!!!!

- The body horror of Circe transforming the men into pigs was beautifully disgusting

- I loved how the existence of the gods was never fully confirmed or denied. Were the storms Poseidon’s wrath or just bad weather? Was Athena appearing to Odysseus with the face of the woman he let die or was he hallucinating out of guilt? Magic clearly existed, because we had a cyclops and a witch and shades of the Underworld, but there’s magic and then there’s divinity. Is everything they say about the gods true or are they just an excuse?

- The removal of the Nobody scene was necessary actually. In the poem, Odysseus gives Polyphemus his real name in a moment of hubris and this causes all the problems later on because now Poseidon knows the name of the man that disrespected him. In the film, the problems are caused by the Greeks breaking Xenia by invading Troy. Keeping the Nobody scene would have detracted from the root cause of all the problems.

- I could write an entire essay about how cleverly Nolan uses events from the Odyssey to make a point about today’s society:

The Trojan War was about trade routes and Helen was just an excuse — just as wars today are waged for oil and resources, and governments give excuses to their citizens to make it seem better.

“The people from the sea” are feared as an invasion of bogeymen threatening innocents, but they’re actually just desperate men trying to find safety.

The Greeks pillage an island and ask “why didn’t you just give us what we wanted? We’re the good guys!” while the village burns behind them, not realising that to the villagers, Greeks and Trojans are all the same.

- Whoever let Anne Hathaway freeze her forehead should be fed to Polyphemus

Yeah, I know the nobody scene was cut. Don’t worry, the film has plenty to make up for it.

Yeah, I know the setting isn’t 100% historically accurate. Don’t worry, the message is timeless.

Listen to me. It’s good. I don’t wanna give away too much, but it’s good.

Don’t let some internet killjoy take away the muscles you’ll strain clenching your fists whenever Antinous is onscreen, the gasps you’ll hear seeing Circe bend and mutilate the helpless soldiers into pigs, and the tears you’ll cry when Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, walks up to his wife, and tells her something that will shock and shake you to your core.

They would focus more on Odysseus’ guile and arrogance, or on the historical tensions and injustices, or on the divine powers that were pulling the strings.

And those are fine themes to focus on, and there are good adaptations that focus on those themes, but they are not the primary theme of this movie.

This movie is about the soul of humanity, and one man’s attempt at restoring it despite the guilt he carries over arguably contributing to its downfall. It’s about trust, and kindness, and justice, and betrayal, and war, and punishment.