#menelaus

Menelaus and helen 🥺

Odysseus’ Impossible Journey Home

The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he struggles to return home after the Trojan War.[1][3] Written in the 8th century BCE, it turns a long, dangerous voyage into a fast-moving tale of monsters, storms, and temptation.[1][3] At its core, the poem is about homecoming, loyalty, and the fight to reclaim one’s life.[1][3]

Key Facts

Hero: Odysseus is the mythical king of Ithaca.[1][3]

Plot: He tries to get home after the Trojan War, but delays and disasters keep stopping him.[1][3]

Danger: His road is filled with monsters, raging storms, and meddling gods.[1][3]

Faithfulness: Penelope waits for him in Ithaca while he is away.[1][3]

Time and setting: The poem was written in the 8th century BCE, but it looks back to the heroic world of the Bronze Age.[1][8]

Historical Context

The poem reflects how ancient Greeks imagined the past: as a lost age of heroes, glory, and great danger.[1] It takes a legendary war and turns the long journey home into a story people could retell and remember.[1][3]

Historical Significance

The Odyssey lasts because its story is simple and powerful: a hero trying, again and again, to get home.[3] It also shaped how later readers think about adventure, endurance, and the cost of delay.[1][3]

Nolan what did you do to himmmmm

he’s so disgusting in this movie?

Like makes comments about how Helen isn’t beautiful anymore and I’m pretty sure its implied he mutilated her face

This is the Menelaus who was so upset and enraged that his wife was stolen by Paris that he united the Greeks. This is the Menelaus that Helen chose (or her father chose, depends on what you read) to be her husband

Straight up Hermione erasure, btw, their daughter is not mentioned at all

Film Menelaus is reduced to a war-mongering man who just wants a pretty woman

Book Menelaus is absolutely not war-mongering and also my favorite character

For example in The Iliad, he is described (this is not verbatim, this is my memory) as guarding the dead body of Patroclus as a mother cow guards her babies—please tell me how that is a violent and greedy man

HE’S A GOOD PERSON OMG

HIS SWORD FALLS FROM HIS HANDS WHEN HE SEES HELEN AGAIN

Any how blame Aquaman comics

As you can see sibling angst is kinda my thing?

Snippet of page one of The Mycenaean, King of Sparta, and a collection of some of my favourite lines 🦁⚔️

A reading from my book 👀 from the awesome. Voice of tartarus (on tiktok)

Check out my book today on amazon ku or paperback