#also if you're reading the iliad just so you can find a new blorbo to

[johaerys-writes]

I see people hating Achilles for what he did to Hector's body bc they love Hector and forgetting that…hmm checks notes Hector want to give Patroclus' body to the dogs? A considerable part of the Trojan army was happy to comply if it meant rewards and he didn't stop doing it because he benevolently changed his mind it was bc he didn't get the body 🤔🤔🤔

And then I see someone who sympathizes with Alexander complaining about Agamemnon bc of Kassandra but hmmm checks notes Alexander in certain versions literally kidnap Helen? And then they say like "lol Achilles and Agamemnon fighting over Briseis and Chryseis as if there were no other girls" and yeah…Alexander also didn't want to give Helen back even though his city was falling apart and the Trojans were asking him to give her back...and with him being a handsome prince I'm SURE there were other women for him imao

I've even seen people complain about versions where the Achaeans blame Helen and talk about how she should have stayed in Troy…guys did you skip the part where she says very obviously that only Hector and Priam were good to her? And the sources where the Trojans literally blame Helen? Or talking about infidelity as if they thought that all of Priam's children are Hekabe's (and that all of Hekabe's are always Priam's too) and Hector absolutely does NOT have concubines in ANY source of the myths (spoiler: he does)

And let's not even talk about characters from past generations (like... there are versions that the Trojan princess Hesione was almost sacrificed by the Trojans themselves lol)

Like guuuuuys neither the Achaeans nor the Trojans are saints 😭😭😭when did this narrative of dichotomy between good and evil begin for God's sake

My friend Baejax made a really good post explaining why and how Hector and the Trojans are constantly being portrayed as beacons of civilization and selflessness while Achilles has been hated on for centuries, and I think she says it much better than I could lol, but basically yeah I agree that the dichotomy that exists currently is a load of BS and not how Homer intended these two cultures to be perceived. If anything, their similarities are highlighted over and over in the epic, instead of their differences. The Iliad is NOT a story about good vs evil, nobility and selflessness vs barbarity. Exalting the Trojans and condemning the Greeks (or vice versa) completely misses the overarching tragedy of it all: that their lives and deaths, their love and pain and misery and struggle are nothing but a spectacle for the gods, and that their fates are something they have no control over. (Frankly, whoever reads it that way just isn't doing a very good job thinking critically about the text, and instead focuses on proving their own biases right by trying to bend the original text and its meaning to their will while thoroughly ignoring the context. Which is incredibly unfortunate, if you ask me)

What the Iliad is is a work that shows the gruesome reality and futility of war, and how there are no winners! None!! It begins with an argument between a shitty, incompetent leader and his best (albeit extremely tired and fed up) soldier, and it ends with not one, not two, but three funerals (Patroclus, Hector but also Achilles, whose funeral is heavily foreshadowed by Hector's). For me, the beauty and tragedy of the work is in realising that both the Achaeans and the Trojans are doomed no matter the war's outcome. And this is something that is confirmed by the Odyssey, where we learn that Troy was sacked and razed, and that the Achaeans, the victors, either returned to broken homes and broken people or got lost or died trying to get back. There is no glory to be had for literally anyone.