#waugh they want to be kind and gentle and they are warriors and good at it but they are gentle!

[some-sort-of-siren]

The thing about the Iliad is all the men are undeniably gentle. They’re warriors and they’re killers and yes, the blood doesn’t phase them, But they’re also gentle. It’s why we see Hector playing with his son, Achilles crying with Priam, Odysseus being referred to not as the son of Laertes but as the father of Telemachus. Homer wants us to know that these boys were not warriors from birth, they were thrust into it unwillingly and though they’re good at it and they want the glory, they’re people at the end of the day and they love more then they hate. Hector and was it Menelaus? Book 5? exchange gifts! Diomedes and glaucus exchange armor! These men are gentle and they do not want to be fighting and they are good at it but they do not love battle, that’s not why they’re heroes. They’re heroes because they are all fighting for someone at the end of it, not something. Because at the end of the day, it’s about the people they love because they are not warriors at heart. The war is about Helen and it’s about glory, but it’s also about Penelope and Andromache and Priam and peleus and all the families of the warriors. Which is why the Iliad has survived this long.