@bertiebatrachos(they/them): odysseus is in there twice bc i got my following on here for odysseus slander
Video Description:
“Achilles doing nothing for 2/3 of the Iliad despite being the main character” Achilles coming into frame, sitting down, and wrapping a blanket around himself.
“Odysseus taking ten years to complete what should’ve been a two week sail.” Odysseus coming into frame looking around, pointing, and leaving.
“Aeneas handling the worst breakup known to man.” Aeneas standing in fire.
“Paris starting a war and then being too much of a wet wipe to fight.” Paris holding up a stick, looking at it, shrugging, tossing it, and sitting down.
“Agamemnon killing his daughter just for favorable wind.” Stabbing a teddy bear with a wooden knife.
“Hector being misogynistic to his wife who has just given him perfectly legitimate battle advice.” Hector holding the wooden knife and arguing.
“Odysseus coming home with none of the 600 men he set out to Troy with.” Odysseus opening the door, counting on his fingers, thinking, looking behind him, and shrugging.
Achilles flourished. He went to battle giddily, grinning as he fought. It was not the killing that pleased him—he learned quickly that no single man was a match for him. Nor any two men, nor three. He took no joy in such easy butchery, and less than half as many fell to him as might have. What he lived for were the charges, a cohort of men thundering towards him. There, amidst twenty stabbing swords he could finally, truly fight. He gloried in his own strength, like a racehorse too long penned, allowed at last to run. With a fevered impossible grace he fought off ten, fifteen, twenty-five men. This, at last, is what I can really do.
I felt in a trance. He had been trained, a little, by his father. The rest was—what? Divine? This was more of the gods than I had ever seen in my life. He made it look beautiful, this sweating, hacking art of ours. I understood why his father did not let him fight in front of the others. How could any ordinary man take pride in his own skill when there was this in the world?
