#the iliad

[wolfythewitch]

my favorite war criminals

[og]

[thoodleoo]

don't care + didn't ask + do not argue me into agreement + there are no trustworthy pacts between lions and men + wolves and lambs do not have a kindred heart + there will be no love between me and you nor will there be any oaths until one or the other of us falls to feed shield-bearing ares on his blood

[elianzis]

"I swear it"

[meditando-en-paris]

Have you ever thought about the faith Achilles had in Patroclus? Achilles always waits for Patroclus.

Achilles waited for Patroclus to come to his palace. He waited for Patroclus to come closer to him to be his friend and right hand man. He waited for him to sleep together. He waited for their first kiss. He waited for Patroclus to reach him, for he was not going to leave with Chiron without him. He waited for him on the island of Skyros in order to be reunited one day. He waited for "his husband". Achilles waited to see Patroclus every evening or morning after the battle because he was his life breath. He hoped to be reunited with him because he was his home and safe place.

He waited for his return after Patroclus left in his armor for Troy. He waited for a sign or a message from his spirit. He wished that his wait would be short and that the gods would finally give his soul a rest so that he could be with Patroclus again.

He waited for Patroclus in the Underworld.

Achilles always hoped that Patroclus would find a way to be reunited with him. They are the eternal reunion.

[moplopbool]

I personally wish Achilles took after his mother's unsettling side as a child

Like a little kelp prince, so to say

[he-is-half-my-soul]

thinking about hector having to face achilles and how scared he must have been and how many guts it took to stand up and fight him knowing beforehand that he was not leaving that battle alive.

imagine looking to your enemy's eyes and finding a shell of person; a person who hasn't eaten or slept in days, a person with absolute fury in his eyes, a person wearing the armour made by a god and fitting it. a person who genuinely has nothing to lose and worst of all a person who has come to terms with the fact that he is going to die. a person who craves it.

this is the core difference between the two of them during their final battle: hector knows he's going to die and he doesn't want to. he has a family and a newborn son to return to and a city that he knows is going to fall without him and all around has plenty of reasons to want to make it out of that fight alive. achilles also knows he's going to die but unlike Hector achilles doesn't want to be alive by this point anyway. hector is fighting for his life while achilles is fighting to try and mend his vengeful heart.

hector had everything to lose; achilles had lost everything already.

and then imagine looking into your enemy's face with pleading eyes. the enemy who has cost you so many of your brother's lives, who's made so many of your sisters into slaves. the person who you know is going to kill you. imagine looking into that person's eyes and having to beg him to at least spare your dead body and give it a proper burial. mind you, these were the times when people believed an unburied person's soul could never reach the afterlife. an unburied soldier was cursed to stay dishonored and alone, wandering through the depths of the world without a physical presence to offer.

and imagine your enemy laughing. and promising to feed your body to the dogs.

and after all of this hector still, still found it in his heart to fight him.

[alibonbonn]

bad news guys Agamemnon's shield fucks the hardest actually !!!

[peggy-sue-reads-a-book]

Menelaus Menelaus Menelaus Menelaus Menelaus Menelaus Menelaus Menelaus Menelaus Menelaus (oooh, rock me, Menelaus)

[margaretartstuff]

I find it so interesting that the fall of Troy is not the climax of the Iliad. We are so used to watching movies were the fall of a city is the big climax but it's not, we learn about it as a narrative.

The climax is Achilles's fight with Hector, the final showdown of an epic 10 year war is a battle of two men different but it's has it's own reasons. Complex characters fighting for what they believe for, center of a conflict non of them wanted in the first place, yet they had the weigh and responsibility of it.

All the tension, the anger, the fear, the losses of the war are built up for this moment so when it's done you feel all these emotions dry out, like there's nothing left to fight for.

[ancientbread]

big fan of the “I can’t fix him but I can follow him to his tragic and untimely end and love him even as he becomes corrupted and decays into a shadow of his former self” trope

[bloodybellycomb]

I really do think that it’s good for the soul to be unironically pretentious about something. Not in a gatekeeping kind of way but in a “yes, it really is that deep and I would love to enthusiastically and passionately explain why” kind of way.

[wolfythewitch]

God there's something about the idea that Hector was wearing Achilles's old armor when he faced him to die. when Achilles saw Hector he saw a mirror of himself, and he knew exactly where to aim

[lipsticklesbia]

i will never stop thinking about this poem my greek professor showed us

[the-overanalyst]

i've come to realize there are only two kinds of tragedies: preventable and inevitable. preventable tragedies are the kind where everything could have maybe worked out if only. if only romeo had gotten the second letter. if only juliet had woken up earlier. if only creon had changed his mind about antigone sooner. if only orpheus hadn't turned around.

inevitable tragedies are the kind where everything was always going to end terribly. of course macbeth gets deposed, he murdered his way to the throne. of course oedipus goes mad, he married his own mother. of course achilles dies in the war, he had to fulfill the prophecy in order to avenge his lover.

both kinds have their merits. the first is more emotionally impactful, letting the audience cling to hope until the very end, when it's snatched away all at once leaving nothing but a void. the second is more thematically resonant, tracking an inherent fatal flaw in its hero to a natural and understandable conclusion, making it abundantly clear why everything has to happen the way it does.

[meditando-en-paris]

Odysseus: Do it or you're straight.

Achilles: *Loud gasp*

[sol-thorne]

So I uhhh... I finished the Iliad. I had a lot of fun but there were so MANY weird ass funny moments that I HAD to draw. Enjoy my personal retelling of these bits. (The designs for the characters are very undocumented and definitely not final though).

PART ONE:

Part two over there!