The Escapist

terpsikeraunos:

The great thing about the Odyssey is that while the Iliad is about the deeds and despair of war– Hector and Andromache’s bittersweet farewell on the walls of Troy, Achilles longing to eat Hector’s flesh like a dog on the battlefield, Priam reminding Achilles of his own father and convincing him to return Hector’s body, Helen wondering if her brothers abandoned her out of hatred, not knowing they were killed– the Iliad is peaks and chasms, a landscape of extremes, but the Odyssey is gray. The Odyssey is the aftermath, when everything is covered in dust, when the price of famous and infamous deeds is revealed, when the hero simply wants to go home, and cannot. When the dead regret their choices in life. When you finally do return and find that nothing was static or caught out of time when you were gone, and few remember you. When you are one of a handful of survivors, the rest of your companions dead. When you’ve endured the worst horrors, yet in the end you are thwarted by mortal and immortal pettiness. When a man hailed as a hero becomes nothing more than a murderer of maids.