Legends Summarized: The Trojan War
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- čas přidán 28. 07. 2022
- The grandest epic cycle this side of the Aegean! Today let's talk about the tale of which The Iliad only makes up a tiny (if impressive) fraction!
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Odysseus still just literally being Solid Snake because of one dumb joke Red made SEVEN YEARS ago is incredibly heartwarming to me.
Literally all of Odysseus' expressions made me burst out laughing, goddamn
I wish I was OG enough to remember that legendary video! You gotta say the name somewhere… please and thank you…
My guess is just one of the older videos called something like Iliad summarised?
@@incognitoman3656 Correct, it is Classics Summarized: The Iliad
@@incognitoman3656 pretty much. I think it’s on the Classics Summarized playlist
@@Jaybirderino same
You know what the best part about the book is? Those long descriptions of where a character was born, what their father did five years before they were born, how their homeland was formed... Only for them to get a spear through their skull in the first battle of the chapter.
Don't forget the colour of their ship/horses.
This is perhaps the funniest part of the odyssey,all this fluff,all those histories and aspirations and dreams and then BOOM dead.
@@yorgo2255 Homer was a comedic genius
War is hell.
"This is Jeff, son of Bob. He was born in Arcadia and is 27. He liked long walks on the beach. Hector stabbed in the face. His father was very sad about that."
The fact that we still know Achilles’ name today means that the prophesy was kinda legit.
Yeah but as much or even more people know Odysseus without said prophecy and without dying for it.
@@LPVince94 more people know Achilles than they know Odysseus
@@hollyjones248 Probably because of the common phrase "Achilles's heel"
@@burntturkey9996 and the fact they named a tendon after him too.
We all know Achilles because of his downfall, but we get to know Odysseus too because he kinda was responsible for the downfall of Achilles lol
Reading the bit in the Odyssey where Helen is impersonating the Achean's wives is honestly just painful. Odysseus has to literally hold people's mouths shut because they honestly think their wives are out there.
Seriously, the entire Achean army has precisely three brain cells, and Odysseus spends the entire war juggling them.
The average brain cell count in the Achean army is like 3.
Most of them are held by Odysseus, some by Achilles and Patroclus, some by the average troops...
And Agamemnon carries a negative amount.
@@dragonfire72 Agamemnon is being hunted by the brain cell equivalent of the IRS for all the IQ debt he's accumulated just by existing.
@@dragonfire72Agamemnon kills the brain cells he's given or stolen and winds down the number if Odysseus isn't careful
@@dragonfire72 Braincells Georg strikes again. The average Achaean has a healthy amount of braincells, but Agamemnon skews the statistics.
They were at there for 10 years, cut them some slack dhdphdf
Achilles being portrayed as an excitable kid who’s there to have fun and slowly descending into depression is actually genius
Probably why the idea has persisted for a cool ~3,200 years. Turns out, if people get bored for long enough, they'll eventually develop some really good dramatic story telling techniques to keep themselves entertained.
@@Zappygunshot On the other hand, boat list.
turns out that classical literature isn’t just some scam to make you racist
And Odysseus being portrayed as solid snake
Yea that's usually how serving in the military goes
I love how Achilles is basically curbstomping everyone nonchalantly even when completely disinterested during his emo phase until the gods literally had to turn Paris's aimbot on to deal with him
Now I have this image of Apollo smacking a switch upside Paris' head and flipping it.
Get good get Apollobox
THE AIMBOT STOP IM CRYING LAUGHING
He was made invincible from birth through the river Styx, Hector is far cooler
Fun fact, Achilles was such a Chad that he would have broken his fate of death and destroyed all of Troy singlehandedly, but then Zeus stopped him because Zeus is an asshole.
I've watched this video a couple of times and realized something. Hera and Athena weren't just pissed at not being chosen but the additional insult to injury. For Hera, Paris snubbed her offer to make him king of the world for a woman who was already married (and happily so, if I recall correctly) showing no respect for her domain. For Athena, Paris turned down her offer of glory and victory to marry a woman whose marriage is technically under the protection of powerful kings that can and will reduce Troy to rubble to honor their oath. It's a very, very stupid move that is guaranteed to end in failure (or pyrrhic victory) especially with the Goddess of War and Wisdom against him.
He didn't just snub them in favor of Aphrodite and her offer, Paris basically spat in their faces, even if it was unintentional.
Huh. That's a very interesting interpretation.
Paris didn't actually know that Helen would be the one he ended up with. Aphrodite only promised the most beautiful woman in the world, but didn't tell Paris who that was. So no, Hera and Athena were just being petty.
@@Blokewood3 I read that Aphrodite *did* tell Paris specifically about Helen, even mentioning that she was already married, "but don't worry, I'll take care of that!" or something.
@@Kelaiah01 I guess this is a detail that depends on the storyteller.
@@Blokewood3 I actually read that in "Dialogues of the Gods." Most of them are quite hilarious. XD
The frame of Hera fuming "now we kill hin, right?" and big-brain Athena's deadpan "we can be MUCH more creative than that" kills me.
Not as much as it killed ALL of Troy.
@@someguy1747 I was about to say 😂😂
"Why kill one guy when we kill an entire city instead, MHAHAHAHAHAA!" -Average Olympian god
CAn you pls tell me why did they say it was Odysseus fault at the end?
Drawing Nemesis, Goddess of Revenge, as a cute little fire angle waving at a baby is the funniest thing ever
Her last drawing of her was very similar, but with darker color and with messy hair, and I choose to believe that that was her not giving a single fuck about how to look when she punished Narcissus xD
2:01
@@eyesofthecervino3366 Thank you!
Well she can be your angle... or yuor Devil
@@antoinerodier god dammit did I spell Angel wrong again?
This keeps happening.
I blame my degree in mathematics
Eris, the goddess of "It's getting too chummy around here", wakes up and chooses violence.
I love how you chose to phrase that.
It actually was. They don't know how to actually have *fun*
The goddess of doing a little trolling
And started a minor religion.
@@professorbutters Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!
Now, seeing as it's Friday, I must go commemorate the Great Snub by consuming a Hot Dog [without the bun, natch].
Now I see why Eris the dwarf planet was named how it was; its discovery is what got Pluto kicked off the planets list
Ares is a big, beautiful, brutish bufoon. The closest thing the Olympians had to a god of evil. But I found out he's got a surprisingly good track record when women are concerned.
1) He is Aphrodite's favorite lover and later her surprisingly supportive husband. He doesn't even mind her sleeping around because he sees it as his girl's thing. Her form of conquest and asserting dominance and he can't get enough of it. He doesn't want to tie her down. No, he wants to unleash her on the world.
2) He's sired pretty badass daughters. He also became the first god to go to court and nearly lose his godhood because he avenged one of his daughters getting violated by butchering the rapist. The rapist was one of Poseidon's sons, so he was up against a stacked court. He got acquited only because on the day of verdict, there were more goddesses than gods in the jury. All the gods voted to punish him. All the goddesses wanted to let him go.
3) He's got a good relationship with his aunt, Hestia. Then again everyone does. But it's very important for Ares as his aunt was his one source of familial-warmth knowing full well how his parents feel about him and how dysfunctional they all are.
4) On that note, Ares is apparently a hands on dad. Even to his bastards (Who Aphrodite is totally cool with too.) Even to the girls. Even to the monstrous looking ones. All his kids either see him in their lives or he leaves them with little boons to set them up. He tries to be a good father because he knew his own father hated him and he tries to be there for his kids in ways Zeus never was for him. As war, it's understandable the "defender of mankind" and "father of laws" would not love nor like the war and bloodshed god. But the war and bloodshed god relishes in fighting alongside his sons, Phobos and Deimos. Morbid, sure, but you gotta appreciate Ares for being a present father.
5) Oh, yeah. The big one. Ares? Brutal, bloody Ares? _Isn't a rapist._ In a messed up family, the war god is the only one without a rape story. Hell, one of his kids with Aphrodite is the embodiment of reciprocity. He is also apparently the official defender of mistreated women. Women who were mistreated pray to him for strength. Which sadly might have contributed to his unpopularity. Oh, and he's a big supporter of the Amazons. The whole culture collectively sees him as their dad.
I heard one reason Ares gets such an awful reputation, besides that warfare sucks for everybody, is that he was the patron god of Sparta. This is important bc Sparta’s number one rival was Athens, and apparently all the people who actually wrote the oral tradition down came from there
@@sarahcole9661 Yeah, he really gets the short end of the stick more often than not, while lacking severe crimes to his name. Though I see revaluations of Ares being less likely than the revaluations that Hades has gotten. Death is a natural thing we must all face, and Hades watches over all the souls of the dead (that are in his jurisdiction).
Whereas war is not a natural thing, and it is often needlessly started by the wicked.
Ok seriously if I were to be a demigod/greek figure, for immortal dads, Poseidon or Ares are at the top of my list. Better yet, they could both be my dads. For immortal moms, i'd say either Demeter or Aphrodite (Red's established she's got a warrior and virtuous streak too).
Never thought I would return to this video with the idea of Ares being a lowkey feminist icon.
When did he get married to Aphrodite?
13:18
On that thought, I love the fact that the epic cycle more or less starts properly with a king being beset by a million suitors, so Odysseus proposes a solution that will peacefully solve the problem with minimal bloodshed while ensuring he also walks away with some compensation, then ends with Penelope being beset by a million suitors so Odysseus's solution is to murder them all.
That's how clever Odysseus is; he's able to learn from his mistakes.
Well she was already spoken for in that instance and they'd been throwing a years long frat party in his house.
…were people seriously that stupid back then? Learning from mistakes should be basic human behavior.
@@TrinityCore60 people don't do that now, why would they do that back then?
@@Palora01 you know what, fair point. I guess I at least be thankful that people nowadays have modern science and general understanding of the world to foster a degree of common sense.
For most people, at least.
Honestly, I just think he was tired of all the bs getting in the way of him being with his wife, but this is a lot funnier
I love that Odysseus being dressed as Solid Snake is just a thing now in OSP.
If you want a new pin idea, him in and out of a wooden crate are something I would buy in a heartbeat.
ABSOLUTELY WOULD BUY
It’s never not been a thing. The very first drawn summary was The Illiad, which featured Solid Snake Odysseus.
OSP
Odysseus Snake Plissken
I'd try an urn, but then the Ares one might be easily confused
We need two types
Solid “baby faced” snake Odysseus
Big Boss”bearded” Naked Snake Odysseus
Achilles rage could actually easily be explained as being the result of a child never truly growing up, as his enthusiasm for war was encouraged because the soldiers knew how useful his strength was and he spent ten years, practically growing up in war and not suffering any actual consequences since he was unbeatable, and Patroclus wouldn't get hurt as long as was there. His death wasn't just the loss of the person he loved more than his fate itself, but the only loss he'd ever suffered, and first consequences of his glory quest of war and in this essay I will-
So he's Homelander but with slightly more empathy in the form of Patroclus?
@@jeremiahardales6597 see you get the idea
No no, continue. Please.
@@jeremiahardales6597 kinda, but no really. While Achilles was far from a saint, he wasnt Homelander-levels of psychopathy (that would be Agammenon, but without the strenght) and most of the time, he was quite justified in his anger, even if the methods to show it were not appropiate, and was capable of emphaty and humanity. Is just that the context and the people around him (except Patroclus) brought up his most callous side
@@mysticpumpkin8520 So he's more Omni-Man than Homelander? Got it.
I find it interesting how Patroclus getting killed was what made Achilles go all out. Like he basically heard the news and said “they could have not done that and won the war, but now they made it so that I have nothing left to fear loosing and no reason to hold back”
It’s quite beautiful and tragic at the same time. He was blinded by his own selfishness and the only way he could see again was by his love dying. He was so depressed but you could say everything he did from then on was for the love of a boy
@@Anna-hl9hy Except the weren't in love. Achilles was already married with children before the war, married Polyxena after Patroclus died and married Medea in the afterlive after he was killed.
Literally the sole reason he walked out of the war is because agamemnon stole his girlfriend and people still think him and patroclus were in love, despite the fact that its not writen anywhere in the illiad or the odyssey and despite the fact that it would highly blasphemus because achilles was younger but was also a god.
@@eyjay1508 i mean it's a pretty popular interpretion of their relationship. It's not stated they were in love but it's not stated that they weren't more than friends too. Male lovers in the time of war was pretty common back there so guys as close and loving to each other as them banging here or there probably wouldn't be too weird.
@@megumintobuna-4537 Males lovers weren't common, that's just a reddit/tumblr rumor. Most same gender lovers in ancient greece were teachers with underage students, it was dishonorable for men of the same stature to be in relationships, and double so when the younger one (eromenos) was a demigod.
Also, achilles already had brieses to bang lol
@@eyjay1508 leave it man these people take the weird head canon some theater writers in ancient greece made for those two and everyone loves fujo bait so they go with it
even when they were not having anything like that
heaven forbid a man gets saddened by his comrade who he cared for like family dying
Poor Cassandra, was forced to live with the knowledge of the destruction of her whole life without being able to convince anyone of her powers. Then to have her family killed, get enslaved, abused, then murdered for being enslaved.
Cassandra did nothing wrong.
Everyone likes to talk about Athena and Medusa (which I really hate that version of the myth but it's so popular now) but no one ever talks about how she could have saved Cassandra and didn't.
Cassandra is literally the epitome of “i told you so”
Cassandra didn't deserve all the tragedy she went through, but it was her own fault she had prophesies no one believed: Apollo asked her out and she said she would only be with him if he gave her the gift of prophecy, but then she still refused to date him. Apollo couldn't take back the gift, so he cursed her so that no one would believe her prophesies.
@@Blokewood3 Depending on the translation, he wasn't asking her out, but wanted to have sex. Yikes.
“They came back
To widows,
To fatherless children,
To screams, to sobbing.
The men came back
As little clay jars
Full of sharp cinders.”
― Aeschylus, The Oresteia
War is hell.
Metal.
@@RandomPerson-cm2wg no, clay. Didn't you read the comment?
new Sabaton song incoming
I have read enough history to know that this DOES NOT apply to all wars universally.
There is one part where Ares tries to stay neutral in the war, I like to imagine him seeing his mom and big sister arguing with his baby mama, and him just going "nope"
He probably is staying neutral so that he wont get his ass kicked by said mom, big sister, and baby mama.
Also him butting in would mean he is helping settle a debate of who is prettier, his mom, sister, or baby mama/girlfriend. And no one smart enough would ever go near that
@@riverstein7251
Well, I mean, I'd have to say my baby mama in this case. Sister's are siblings and your mom is, well, your mom. But your baby mama is your partner so, I'd go for that
Wait, so Athena is older than Ares? Actually wait, yeah cause Zeus was married to Metis before Hera, right?
Oh, and he lost his children during the Trojan War.
Y’know, this whole mess *technically* was partially caused by Odysseus, but it’s really the fault of whoever didn’t invite Eris to the godsdamn wedding. Like, I get you’re worried she’s gonna cause trouble, but she’ll *definitely* cause more trouble if she’s not invited.
Damned if you do, damned if you dont...
@@BlackSwordMeister I suppose, but if you're damned either way, better to not give her a reason to target you specifically.
I suppose, but who wants chaos at their wedding?
@@kbye2321 Someone wise enough to know there's no escaping it and better to invite it than to be surprised by it.
So, Zeus is really to blame (which wouldn't suprise me). Interestingly, from what I understand from Greek mythology, the Trojan War is one of several methods Zeus used as a means to get rid of all his demi-god children running around on Earth so regular mankind could inherit it.
Fun fact, the arrows that Philoctetes uses to kill Paris are actually Heracles’ Hydra Blood arrows. Philoctetes got them from Heracles after helping him light his funeral pyre after the whole “Hydra Blood Shirt” incident. Just a nice little detail that emphasizes how the trojan war generation was the generation right after Heracles’ generation.
True, because after they took Troy the downfall of their civilization [The Mycenaean] began after the siege of Troy which lead to the Dorons migration from the north which are called Hercules descendants in the myth "The return if the Herakles"
The conclusion is that it's indeed right
This is part of the reason I love Greek mythology because there's almost a timeline
Gotta love that Odysseus is literally the ONLY dude in the war that actually has a brain and doesn’t just jump into death traps for the sake of honor
Favorite trio for the Trojan war has to be Diomedes, Odysseus and Hector
Ody because big brains. Diomedes because he's Achilles without some serious plot armor, and Hector because underdogs are cool
What is the painting at the 13 minute mark?
He's the kind of character that are so badass it makes you think anyone around their ballpark is just as badass.
First time hearing about Laocoon was in this video, and just the fact he actually saw throught the troyan horse and needed divine intervention to keep him from digging deeper makes me think he's Odysseus' equal in terms of using the head above to think.
I doubt he was even that cool, is just Odysseus puts him there by being even a little close to him in smarts.
The Odyseuss = Solid Snake comparison is truly fitting, very much a master of trickery.
He's no idiot, it's kind of his whole thing
@@thisisanickname231 I already knew Laocoon because it was taught to me in school, but particularly because Michelangelo made a statue about him and his sons being attacked / devoured by the snakes! Look it up, it's tragic but SO well sculpted. It's kept in Italy in a museum and there's a replica in one of the biggest squares in Florence.
I know this isn't intentional, but I like the idea that Aphrodite promises Hellen of Troy because of her previous status as a war goddess, and she knew it would start a big conflict.
Ares: “So bae, what have you been up to lately?”
Aphrodite: “Just looking at some cute ships”
Ares: “Aww, it’s a good thing you’re not a war goddess, you wouldn’t last a day”
That’s brilliant. I’m stealing this headcanon.
@@spaceoil4259 I think that Ares would definitely know about Aphrodite's war goddess aspect based on Red's vid on Aphrodite
Another curious aspect on Aphrodite’s role is that she and Helen sort of parallel each other as they are so beautiful people fight over her before they are put in a marriage/relationship neither of them had a say in, and the guy who they chose happens to be Spartan (ares is the patron god of Sparta so he’s spartan default)
@@spaceoil4259
Ares: "You're all about that make love not war"
Aphrodite: **under her breath** "I can do both."
Because of everything that happened, I honestly think Helen as a child of Nemesis is very poetic.
It’s also kinda funny thinking of it being an extension of her demigod powers that everyone who is mean to her dies horribly
And I think the fact that Menelaus doesn’t get any negative energy and lives a long happy life means she probably did actually love him and the Paris thing was kidnapping/god BS
@@seanmcloughlin5983 I actually want to write an adaptation that uses that version of her parentage in which she goes with Paris willingly in order to instigate the war as punishment for something one of the Trojans did.
@@fictional-girl_05 id read that
Reply here if you ever end up making it, that sounds rad
@@seanmcloughlin5983 Even if she doesn't love Menelaus, she loves her daughter Hermione, and in some play or poem (not the Iliad, but maybe by Euripides? Unsure) she laments the fact that she and Hermione would weave together and now her daughter just has her tiny loom, all alone. That stuck with me because it's such a sad image, and because it signals that she really didn't want to go with Paris, if not for her husband then for her daughter.
@@fictional-girl_05 That is so cool btw! I was also planning to write as well about that one too! Except that I was thinking about the story of the Trojan War in Nemesis' POV and how she feels about Helen, her daughter. It is really intriguing of what their mother-daughter dynamics are like. ❤
I honestly love Red's unconditional hatred of Agamemnon. It's just so pure and consistent. Like, she'll acknowledge the virtues of any debate point (even if she thinks you're wrong) on virtually any topic that's been discussed on this channel, but Agamemnon... He's just "the Worst." That's it, debate over.
(I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment; I just find her hatred of him to be pure and refreshingly unadulterated.)
Agememnon is a true chad
@@mustafam956I'm sorry, but I think you made a typo. I believe the word you're looking for is '*Scumbag*'.
@@NA-AN Do you mean "backpfeifengesicht"?
A hatred more than earned
“I feel bad for him but, I don’t”
Honestly probably the most accurate way to describe Paris ever
was just about to type this comment before realising that the vid is 2 weeks old someone else had *definitely* already done it!
Had this moment with Jason when I watched medea's story by Red.
@@george2459 happens all the time, doesn’t matter
@@guillermoivanchristopherg.1431 No one feels bad for Jason, though
@@nyxie2877 yep
What’s kind of interesting is the implication that the Trojan war is just a hugely mythologized version of a real conflict that happened just prior to the Bronze Age collapse and beginning of the Greek dark ages.
OSP have a video about that connection too.
@@SimonClarkstone which one?
Last blue video I think its about the Crete island
I’d compare it to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a dramatization of real events that has fictional elements. Just based off oral history than written.
@@SpiderkillersInc I’d compare it slightly more to the book of invasions more than the three kingdoms, as well as the tales of hengest and horsa
I think it’s hilarious that the whole thing about Achilles wrapping himself in a blanket burrito is literally what happened in the Iliad
The best thing about the Trojan horse is that it really *is* a tribute to Athena -- she's the goddess of *war and strategy.*
Always thought it was awfully convenient for Laomedon to suddenly die by snakes, but all's fair in love and war I suppose.
Can we all take a minute to appreciate how far Red's style, in both her art and commentary, has come since her original Trojan War videos?
Yes.
Yes we can.
We're all so proud of our girl Red :)
Yes. And I loved her original video too.
Yes
@@Canadamus_Prime i didn’t, she didn’t even mention the wrath of Achilles, which the entire point of the poem. This one is much better:)
Artemis: "I can't believe you actually tried to sacrifice your daughter."
Agamemnon: "You're the one that put me up to it!"
Artemis: "I didn't think you'd actually do it!"
Agamemnon: "Have you even met me?!"
Imma be honest, Artemis doesn't seem like the type who'd actually save the daughter.
Like, she's not necessarily evil but she's insanely cold and brutal. She the god of the hunt after all, impersonal carnage is her whole thing.
@@Pihsrosnec That's true, but it also seems weird that she would demand that the daughter be killed in the first place. She does also supposedly protect children (especially young women).
My headcanon is that Artemis wanted her to be her priestess and sent off to one of her temples to serve her, but Agamemnon ✨ misunderstood ✨
@@kindateia Isn't one of the versions of Orestes Furies-haunted misadventures have him stumble across Iphigenia who was saved by Artemis and made into a priestess of hers? So at least one playwright shares your headcanon
@@kindateia Artemis: Ey gimme the kid.
Agamemnon, with two braincells: Well we give things to the gods by killing and burning them, right?
Odysseus being simultaneously the smartest character in the Trojan war AND the one who caused it all initially is some dramatic irony
Did he? Could he have predicted Paris stealing Helen?
I would love to see an animated video, or at least a youtube short that's framed as a game show for "Ancient Greece's Next Top Asshole" between Jason, Theseus, and Agamemnon.
Little do they know, the final challenge for the show is the contestants have to somehow out-asshole Zeus
@@jtmartin1170 That is quite literally impossible.
I'm tired of the Jason slander man did nothing wrong. Worst thing you can argue was the Medea incident but that LITERALLY wasn't his choice. He had a passing interest and then Aphrodite mind controlled Medea into being madly in love with Jason and, be honest of a second. If Jason had rejected the free wife from Aphrodite Aphrodite would have fucked him up for having the audacity. When a god gives you something even if you didn't want it you do not reject it, they're Greek gods, they're awful
And no shit he ended up leaving her eventually she commited multiple bloody yandere-esque murders including her own brother without even being prompted to do it.
Jason was not exactly put in a position where there was no right choice.
@@corvuscolbrandI mean, he could have just not done it, cause she single handedly carried his ass the entire time they were in her homeland, got their marriage sanctified by Hera and was at the best point he could be in and was able to cock it up and anger both Hera for trying to cheat on his wife and Zeus for the family murder. Bro had everything given to him on a silver platter and died under the rotting prow of the Argo, that is scientific levels of stupidity
They should have a “dumbass” category to it as well so characters like Paris can join
I love the small details on Eris’ bedside table. The copy of Paradise Lost and the selfie of her and Loki are *perfection*
Eris and Loki would totally get along.
3:43 for anyone who wants to see
I can already picture them going out for coffee to spill the tea from their pantheons to eachother.
Lmao I have no idea how you guys can tell that's Eris and Loki, but I'll take your word for it
Lol, How the Hell did you even Recognize that?! The Picture frame is so Tiny! But I Funny Endorse the Idea that those two would be BFFs!
I love how Red's shifted Odysseus' design so that he looks perpetually exhausted/dead inside on top of the solid snake thing. Seems like a fair choice for the guy stuck with the one braincell in the midst of all this rampant shenaniganery.
It's so funny to me that Odysseus' characterization across the centuries remained "The only one with a functioning brain" and that he suffered massively for it.
At the end of the day, Paris was doomed no matter who he chose. Giving the apple to any one goddess would invoke the wrath of the other two upon the judge. That's precisely why Zeus told Hermes to go find some mortal to settle the dispute between the three goddesses rather than dealing with it himself. It's one of the smartest and sneakiest things Zeus ever did.
He probably thought the 2 goddesses would've just killed the mortal and be done with it. Unfortunately, he picked Paris...
Maybe Choosing Athena would have helped fight off threats
That’s why you gotta cut the apple into thirds! Unfortunately apple slicers hadn’t been invented yet.
Asks hades if he wants a gift for his wife (the other goddesses are afraid of hurting him due to how scary Persephone is)
I feel like hera or Athena would have been smarter choices lmao, they can both protect him.
In fairness, Agamemnon threatening Odysius's son to get him to join the war was probably the ONE smart thing that guy did, since Odysius is probably the one guy in that war with a brain
Ok but the guy is really lucky he didn't get murdered after doing that. Ngl woulda thrown him overboard the moment he and I were alone and not told anyone
@@DemonicsInc fun fact, there's actually a version where Palamedes is the one that threatens his son, so later Odysseus frames him by forging a letter that was supposedly from Priam to Palamedes and buries trojan treasure in Palamedes' camp. The Achaeans deem him a traitor so they stone him to death
Agamemnon knew he was lying though. And Odysseus was trying to weasel out of going through with HIS PLAN
Yeah, but it is still a dick move on his part.
In my opinion, I feel that Helen doesn't deserve the hate. Considering she was charmed by Aphrodite herself to go with Paris and even tries to resist her influence in the Illiad, I think it's pretty clear that she never wanted any of the collateral damage that happened over what a God demanded
Ancient greeks be like: "sure, Paris may have kidnapped Helen, but it's the woman's fault for being too beautiful in the first place"
Same vibes as "the woman has no claim to the child she gave birth to, she's just the oven that cooks the bun" and "burn Penelope at the stake if she were to sleep/cheat with any of the princes courting her, but Odysseus sleeping with Calypso and Circe is 100% A-Ok and totally not cheating"
I always perceived it has her being a victim of kidnapping trying to figure a way out so I always find it hard to gel with other interpretations even if they were probably the intended ones. Every time she talks to Paris she sounds like she utterly despises him.
@@ohno8398 Yeah I remember writing an essay about Helen back in University. It actually irritates me how there is somehow an argument against Helen here
Even in the version where she pretends to be the Achean men’s wives when they’re hiding in the horse, which shows that she’s completely acting in Troy’s interests, at that point, at least, it’s obvious that that’s because of the love spell that Aphrodite cast on her. I’ve only ever blamed Paris and Aphrodite for this giant ass fiasco. Helen and Odysseus were completely innocent in this.
@@coltonwilliams4153 There's also the time leading up to the war. There was negotiations to have Helen returned but they were promptly denied.
Knowing Odysseus asked Menelaus to set him up with Penelope and later not wanting to go to war because he loves being a family man is the sweetest and further cements him as my favorite Greek Hero
Tendarius*
And then you read this sequel in which his son by Circe accidentally kills him and marries Penelope.
@@arvinroidoatienza7082 yeah that is not canon and not written by homer so nah, he gets the happy ending and deserves it for being decades away from his family
i am gonna be honest that weird like sequel sounds way to edgy to even be good writing
@@crawlingboy Yeah me too. I mean, I loved the Odyssey and Ulysses as a character and he suffered a lot already. And then I learned about that try hard sequel and said nah, it's not canon.
And the fact that his apparently illegitimate son marries his wife yuck
@@arvinroidoatienza7082 yes it just is bad
Especially the Penelope part
Like the woman waited 20 years for her husband and loved him and you are telling me some illegitimate bastard kills him and steals her
That is just edgy for the sake of edgy
I would like to talk a bit about the "Agamemnon threatens Odysseus' child" a bit:
In the version of the legend I heard, Odysseus had pretended to go mad mainly by acting like an ox and plowing the fields. Agamemnon took Odysseus' newly born child and put it in the field. By stopping in his tracks, Odysseus admitted that he was still capable.
I brought up this story because it shows that Agamemnon is pretty dang smart. He trick Odysseus, the smartest of the fighting kings. But being smart isn't all. Odysseus applied his intellect to solve a crisis that could be a prequel to the Trojan Wars - Bride Wars. He's not innocent, but most of the tricks he uses are for peaceful means. The one trick Agamemnon uses is used so someone could go to a war, not to mention the trick itself is just... cold.
Even when he's smart he's being the worst...
I'd heard Ody yoked an ox & donkey together, started sowing salt, and not driving straight. the messenger stuck telemachus in front of Odysseus, and Ody goes around. with his trick foiled, he then gets dragged off to Troy
I know she wasn't an option but I feel the actual safest bet in the "who gets the apple" choice would be to throw a curveball on everyone & pick Persephone. Like, if you're going to have all the goddesses pissed at you anyway, might as well have the one on your side be Queen of the Underworld.
Persephone might be ticked off at you if you did that, because she never asked to be dragged into this argument.
@@Blokewood3 Well if nothing else I've succeeded in making Eris happier.
Part of me thinks he did that on purpose to start the war. Knowing his parents wanted to kill him because he'd destroy Tory and just loving Hector more he took Helen, while he still had a wife, in order to start the war that would destroy Troy as revenge by becoming the destroyer they feared he was.
It's explicit that other goddesses didn't join in. Like Demeter was fully there and so was Artemis, Paris could have picked one of them. Or Hestia, she was also present. But those three (like Persephone) had the common sense to stay tf out of the drama. I also think that it's sort of related to power proximity amongst the gods: Hera is Zeus' wife, but he cheats on her, Athena is his favorite daughter, but was part of a coup to overthrow him, and Aphrodite is the only being who can make Zeus lose control through making him fall in love, and is sometimes called his most beautiful daughter (if her mother is Dione). So it's a stepmother and her stepdaughters all fighting for acknowledgement from the toxic mess that is Zeus.
@@leeh4669 but persephone and Artemis are also hera's stepdaughters
The nostalgia of seeing Red draw the ol bois of the Illiad in her current art style is honestly the best dose of seratonin I'll get in a while. Thank you Troy for being such a bad movie :D
Don't you mean dopamine?
@@shekharpatait1203 there's more than one good brain chemical
Agreed! They look great, especially Odysseus.
Only true fans can remember Troy being so bad Red drew it all instead. And true fans are so grateful that whoever made Troy didn’t follow the plot at all.
Also Odysseus looks So cool in the updated style.
There’s a super sad bit in the Iliad when Helen goes up to the walls to look at the Achean heroes and is confused that her brothers (the Discouri) aren’t there. She has no idea that they died 10 years ago, before even setting sail for Troy.
Helen was still at Sparta when her brothers died, wasn't she? I remember they retrieved her while Theseus went down to Erebos with Pirothoös; they took Theseus' mother Aithra back with them to serve as Helen's handmaiden and she later accompanied her to Troy.
@@Boss_Isaac it depends on the version, but here’s Homer’s:
“‘There are two whom I can nowhere find, Castor, breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer; they are children of my mother, and own brothers to myself. Either they have not left Lacedaemon, or else, though they have brought their ships, they will not show themselves in battle for the shame and disgrace that I have brought upon them.’
She knew not that both these heroes were already lying under the earth in their own land of Lacedaemon.”
her brothers' own story is usually that Pollux is immortal but Castor is mortal and was killed in a fight with these other twins. So Zeus gave Pollux a choice: live up on Olympus as an immortal, or share his immortality with Castor with both spending a day in the underworld and a day in the heavens. So Pollux chose the latter, and now both brothers are alive AND dead, having also become the constellation Gemini.
@@donnguyen1107 a good brother
Her brothers were argonauts, which happened a generation before the Trojan War, so they would probably be in their 60s-70s by the time of the Iliad. Odd that Helen would expect them to still be fighting.
My boy Ajax barely gets a few moments. Oh well. Its funny the story I read growing up always depicted his suicide as being done out of guilt rather then shame because he lost. Basically after he lost he went out into a field and in a blind rage slaughtered a herd of sheep, in visioning that they where Odysseus and many others from the army. When he came to his senses he realized he had felt joy from killing his comrades, even though it was only in his imagination, and killed himself out of shame and guilt. It always amazes me just how many variations these old stories can have.
I knew he killed the livestock but had no idea he was pretending to kill his comrades till now!
I cant get over Odysseus saying "I kinda like this guy" about Laocoon who literally almost impaled Menelaus.
A worthy opponent. A fellow juggler of brain cells, only for the other side.
Fun fact: Australia's defence headquarters once let in a literal Trojan horse.
Once in, the warriors fell from the breach and were not arrested for funni reasons
The same guys who lost a war to emus
What was this?
@@obi-wankenobi7041 You fought in the war, Uncle Ben?
@@Sb_Antimony The Chaser, you can find the video if you search for it on CZcams
They were an iconic satire show, equipped with lawyers to make sure they didn't get themselves in serious trouble, while sticking to the very knife's edge!
Ah some classic Chasers War on Everything hijinks 😆
I’ve always believed the real reason Hera and Athena got mad about losing the Apple is because Aphrodite proved she can outsmart them. They see this young dude and offer him kind of intangible things power and boundless wisdom.
Aphrodite knows mortal hearts and realizes Paris will much prefer something ‘real’. The most beautiful woman in the world. THAT Paris can actually conceive of.
To be honest, considering that she is literally the god of seduction, I feel as though she could have gotten him to pick her without offering anything.
I don't think that Hera or Athena ever stood a chance.
Hell, in some versions Aphrodite is literally the Goddess of Love AND Beauty!
Meanwhile, Hera can't even get her own husband to sleep with her consistently despite being the literal Goddess of Marriage and Athena never previously gave any indication of caring overmuch about her looks.
So, yeah, not really a fair match-up.
"How DARE she win with a CHEAP SHOT like THAT!!!"
@@OmniGman Nobody in ancient Greece ever claimed that marriage and fidelity were the same thing.
...At least for men...
It's... really not that deep. Aphrodite Pandemos is flighty, fickle, and has absolutely no concept of consequences. She just thought "pretty people belong together" and decided to make it happen.
I love that Red portrays Odysseus as just Ancient Greece Solid Snake.
he essentially was solid snake which is great
What is solid snake?
@@nara9404 BOY DO I HAVE A RABBIT HOLE FOR YOU
Solid Snake AKA "David" was the protagonist of the Metal Gear franchise, a clone of the greatest soldier in the world, John AKA "Big Boss" AKA "Naked Snake" who attempted to threaten the world using a series of giant nuclear armed robots called "Metal Gears". David eventually killed his father using a lighter and can of hair spray which allowed him to destroy Metal Gear. It wasn't until years later that he found out it was a man impersonating his father that he had killed, and eventually he would come across his genetic brother Liquid Snake who was also a clone of Big Boss. During the events of Metal Gear Solid he would eventually kill his brother as well which resulted in him destroying another metal gear. He became legendary for his stealthyness and was renowned for his ability to accomplish missions as well as wearing a bandana on his head that canonically gives him infinite ammo.
Confused? Good, because this is just the start of the timeline and I already skipped over the plot of three games.
@@Xaxp OK, their names are funny
@@XaxpIt gets even weirder after that. The whole series (currently) ends with a cyborg ninja fighting a nanomachine powered US senator in the flaming rubble of a giant robot.
"I came here to flee the furies and kick ass, and the furies are inescapable!" is an amazing pre ass kicking one liner.
“Literature and art nowadays is far too emotional”
The Iliad: first word literally being wrath
You mean ancient greece isn't considered nowadays anymore? Dammit, I really need to catch up with the youth... is Pliny the Younger still popular?
Me:*Opens Iliad*
Also me: Why do I hear boss music?
@@bobthegamingtaco6073 sadly he has entered his flop era in my opinion
A story of wrath, some romance, compassion, and crazy ass action!
Everything too Emo and angsty
ancient literature: angsty about sin and existence about being in a world of gods
One version I read said that Achilles, upon killing Penthesilea, was shocked when he saw how young she was(which, considering Achilles was possibly a teenager when the Trojan War started, makes me wonder how young Penthesilea was for him to be horrified by her to be fighting and to have killed her at such a young age), and forbade anyone from looting the corpses of her and her warriors.
Maybe he saw himself in her, choosing to fight for glory and dying young.
And then Thersites, that asshole, just straight up slammed a sword into her skull, based on the telling that Im familiar with (dunno if it's consistent with other versions or not, since I read a Vietnamese translation)
I thought females were considered to be of no accounted age at all, until they were married... then again, with folks of such far-flung upbringings, some variations in cultural 'norms' must be expected.
@@jean-paulaudette9246 During Homer's time aka 8th century BCE we have little knowledge of the sociopolitical dynamics in every single city state.
I'm pretty sure the general consensus is how shocked he was by her beauty.
So I always pictured Helen as being a young twenty-something in the Trojan War. Freshly married, freshly kidnapped, the perfect age for young suitors to look at her and go "mine". But Clytemnestra is the *exact same age* as her and had a daughter in her teens(ish?) at the start of the war. So that bumps up Helen's age to at least thirty.
This started me down a rabbit-hole of what actually was going on between Helen's arranged marriage and Helen's...new arranged marriage. Turns out, she had at least one child by the time of Aphrodite's shenanigans. So these kids lost their mother suddenly, the father sailed off to get her back....and then a decade passes. By the time the parents returned the kids were all basically adults. That's weirdly sad to think about. Where's the story of these parents finally reuniting with their now grown-up children after a literal decade apart? Gimme that tale!
That tale is in the Nostoi which is sadly lost to time
It likely does exist. And is lost to time.
There’s a shit ton of myths that are just missing from us and we know they existed.
also Menelaus spent SEVEN YEARS getting back after the Trojan war too
"Really it's a happy ending for no one". Honestly this is one of the few things the movie Troy got right: the feeling during the sacking that, really, nobody is coming out looking good or heroic. Especially in the directors cut where they put more emphasis on the rape and infanticide bit of the sacking...yeesh..
True
So a bit of an interesting fact: most people know that the Trojan war lasted a decade but what people don't know is that the part of the story where Artemis causes the Greek ships to be lost lasts 8 years. This is interesting because the Trojan cycle doesn't actually make it entirely clear if the 8 years lost at sea "counts" as part of the 10 years which either means that the actual Trojan war only lasted 2 years or that the time the Greeks were gone actually totals to 18 years.
Interesting; do you remember any source for that?
In any case, it can't be 18 years, because then Odysseus would be away from home for 28 years, and Telemachus isn't that old.
@@jasondoe2596 Here you can also remember that Achilles had a son, Telemachus, who was born either a couple of months before the departure of "our young hero" to Troy, or immediately after. And Telemachus is mentioned as a young warrior who fought in Troy, and who took Andromache and a couple of other personalities with him.
So the 18 year version makes sense. Although then poor Odysseus returned home a 60-year-old old man.
@@user-pb7ch5kl8x where is he called Telemachus isnt his name pyrrhus or Neoptolemus
probably the former, since Odysseus son would be over thirty and a proper king by the time the aforementioned returned if it had been 28 years.
@@axios4702 no not Odysseus son Achilles son
Could you possibly do a whole video on Cassandra herself? She’s such a tragic character
So are most women in Greek mythology.
No I want Gilgamesh
Or Philoctetes, specifically because it's a great way to show off that Odysseus absolutely fucking deserved what came to him later, and because Philoctetes is metal as hell in his own right, literally blessed by a god because he had the balls to stand up and kill said god.
I like that but I also want a whole video on Helen
I also would love a video on Clytemnestra
At 9:26 Achilles mourns the death of Penthesilia, but it is interesting to note that she is like the 3rd girl who is regarded as a potential wife to Achilles since the war started. Iphigineia was lured to the greek camp under the pretense that Achilles wants to marry her. Then there was the whole drama about Briseis. Then the Amazon queen. And the thing is that he was already married, before he sailed to Troy!
I guess Thersites kind of had a point then.
wow, 4 wives and a boyfriend, he sure is busy huh
@@1224chrisng I think at a certain point even his son shows up at Troy, which I never understood. How many 9-year olds went to war in ancient Greece?
To make it even weirder, he mightve been a child when he was married and even had a son, achilles was in his 20s i believe in the illiad which took place 10 years into the war, put 2 and 2 together And yeah
I believe some sources state that Achilles’ son was 14 when he arrived at Troy after Achilles died. So just old enough to heft a spear.
If Achilles was in his early to mid 20’s at the start of the war, and with the war in its 10th year when he died, there is just barely enough time for his son to have been born a few years before the war started.
Oh I saw a cool theory about why Artemis demanded the daughter as a sacrifice.
Artemis is the protector of young girls in mythology, which at first makes it make less sense why she would demand that sacrifice before letting them sail to Troy. But, it was her making Agamemnon have to deal with the loss he's going to put the people of Troy through. Like, the people attacking Troy don't have to worry about their families being caught up in the fighting bc they're nowhere near it.
Artemis was going 'hey, if you really want to do this, sail off and destroy a city, kill hundreds of innocent girls? Prove your commitment. Kill your own daughter.'
And Agamemnon is the worst so he barely hesitated
God I love Eris's OwO face. I've never seen her portrayed as anything other than a bitter crone, but her portrayal as a chaotic and sassy anime girl is new and interesting.
The DreamWorks movie about Sinbad had her as more of a...goth anime girl
Reversed for me?
I like to envision her as Raquel from Barbie life in the dreamhouse
Either way, Eris is every Sapphic person's sexual awakening
@@BJGvideos exactly
About Achilles' heel: it was common in stories to say that where a hero got their mortal wound was actually their one weakness. Ajax also was said to be invincible except from where he plunged his own sword, and Cygnus, who Achilles kills in the Cypria, was invincible except the head.
That... makes a surprising amount of sense. Like "wow this dude was such a total badass in battle that he MUST have been immune to damage, except for that one thing which happened to kill him, for Reasons"
What I've never understood is how a heel strike is lethal. I'm trying to imagine the worst case scenario: crushed bone, severed muscle, blood everywhere, but it seems (again worst case scenario) they could have amputated the foot and cauterize the leg.
@@colinmerritt7645 Pray tell, how do you amputate a foot that is indestructible? For that matter how do you cauterize flesh that cannot be burned?
From a practical angle, 90% of people that died in war around this time died from infection after getting a small scratch. That said, if the major artery in the leg was hit and not addressed you can very well bleed out before people know what to do.
In the case where he’s invincible everywhere else: I imagine that his heel is his weak point because all of his remaining ‘mortality’ is there. It his his only remaining tie to the mortal world. Destroying it is supernaturally lethal, not purely physically.
@@colinmerritt7645 poison
“Zeus, recognizes disaster when he sees it”
Because he’s caused enough to know them
I always feel bad for Menelaus and Helen, from most of the texts, they're in a good relationship and then Paris comes along and kidnaps her, in most cases, against her will, which he responds like any good Husband would, grab all his buddies and go storm the castle. Also, Paris is a complete dick for having a wife and still choosing to get a married girl. Oh, and raiding Menelaus's treasury while kidnapping his wife is just the frosting on the shit cake that is Paris.
I will never forget watching Troy in highschool, where they clearly tried to make Paris sympathetic, and not a single person in my class was rooting for him versus Menelaus.
I remember one translation of the Iliad where the translator just went on a whole tangent about Aphrodite and Helen's interaction, with Helen simultaneously being really into Paris, hating herself for that and knowing that her emotions are fabricated by Aphrodite, and unironically saying at one point that Paris should die so this stupid war will be over (because she's grown genuinely fond of many Trojans and doesn't want them to die).
I absolutely love how you're just merging Odysseus more and more with solid snake every episode with him in.
"Odysseus just barely managed to keep the others from blowing their cover through basic logic and the occasional application of CQC." really got me 😂
@@Variocom I’m just imagining him holding whatever poor soul first tried to speak up in a choke hold while angrily whispering to the others not to blow their cover.
@@liegeparadox2624 Odysseus: I will kill you all if I think you’re going to blow this! Do you Hades damned idiots understand me?!
Everyone else: Yessir! Yessir! Whatever you say!
Poor bastard in the chokehold: *painful grunting while tapping out*
Honestly young Solid Snake Odysseus might be my favourite character in this episode.
That'd make Achilles Raiden and Agamemnon Liquid or Ocelot.
THANK YOU for the call out of the "war bride" or "bride prize" euphemism. Beating around the bush on this is incredibly sick- Briseis and Chryseis deserve better, as do basically all of the women of Troy, who got their lives ruined way harder than any of the Achaeans did during/after the war.
One thing I'd add is that Athena wasn't just pissed at the Achaeans for stealing her statue, but that Cassandra was assaulted _in Athena's temple_ or dragged from it when she had been embracing the statue and praying to Athena for safety.
Yes. But also if you need an explanation for that, then your history class has failed you. Shit like that is so disgustingly common in war that in the region I live in, this is not a thing of legends and not even from history books but in living memory (i.e. some of the older folks around here have witnessed it themselves).
Cassandra was assaulted by Ajax the lesser, son of Oileus (not to be confused with the greater Ajax, son of Telamon). Some of the Greeks were considering killing Ajax right then and there to stave off a potential curse from the Gods, but Ajax claimed sanctuary (even though he hadn't shown Cassandra the same courtesy). On the trip away from Troy Ajax drowned, and nearly all the other leaders had a miserable time getting home except for Nestor, who had refrained from committing any war crimes.
Why are humans like this?
I really like how Madeline Miller interpreted Briseis in The Song of Achilles. Achilles, who has zero interest in women in that book, takes her as a "bed slave" because Patroclus asks him to. Patroclus does this because he sees the fear in her eyes and wants to save her from being assaulted by any of the other men present. Achilles and him proceed to "claim" various other war brides, give them their own tent to chill out and be safe in, and become friends with them. Achilles and Patroclus never lay a hand on any of the women. Briseis also falls in love with Patroclus after they become good friends, but nothing ever comes of that because Patroclus is a one-man guy.
Say what you want about the movie Troy (and there is a LOT to say), but Briseis getting to stab the fuck out of Agamemnon is a delightful and oh so satisfying piece of fanfiction.
Not sure if anyone has talked about this yet, but Oenone have more reasons to let Paris die than just being abandoned. They had a son together; emphasis on HAD.
Depending on the versions, he was sent to Troy and was smitten by Helen, causing Paris to kill him in jealousy even before knowing that was his child.
He deserved that arrow. Too bad some versions says that Oenone committed suicide after refusing to save him, cause she can do much better.
I mean Paris didn't know....
There's an excellent bit of acting in the otherwise hard-to-watch movie Troy: Sean Bean, as Odysseus, overhears one of the other Greek leaders saying they'll never end the siege, because the walls of Troy are impenetrable, and the Trojans have more food within than they can gather from without. He's mulling over it, and is momentarily distracted by the fellow across from him whittling. Oddyseus asks the unnamed warrior what he's making, and he says it's a horse he's going to take home to his daughter. Oddyseus' face gets thoughtful, then he breaks out in a huge grin, and then he looks profoundly sad.
Without one line of dialog, Sean Bean portrays the emotions Odysseus goes through as he first comes up with the idea of the Trojan Horse, and then thinks through what's going to happen if the plan succeeds. He realizes he's come up with a way to win the war, and a way to doom the Trojans to rape and slaughter with the Greeks under the command of Agamemnon, and his joy in his own cleverness is immediately snuffed out -- by his own cleverness.
I keep thinking I've heard all the weird stuff that possibly happened in Greek mythos, and then I have to hear about Helen hatching from an egg because her mom got double-teamed by Swan Zeus and her husband
And that is not even the only case of bestiality in greek mythology, remember the Minotaur?
And poseidon as a horse, cant forget that.
Or the literal snakes
Greek mythology is basically 50% someone gets killed for stupid reasons that could be totally avoided and the other 50% is Zeus banging everything but never in his original form and the consequences that come out of those.
@@jacktaylor6253... golden rain. Zeus turned into golden rain.
Speaking of the Amazons that showed up on the side of Troy, another group showed up to help the Trojans: the Ethiopians. Memnon, a prince and demigod from Africa, shows up to help Troy and kills a bunch of Greeks, one of which was Antilochos, a friend of Achilles. Nestor, the dude’s dad, tells Achilles, so he gears up again and meets Memnon to fight to a stand still. This was after Hector died, so it was a battle of two dudes trying to avenge their fallen comrades. After a long battle, Achilles gets a lucky blow and strikes him through the heart. The Gods were so impressed by Memnon doing so well in battle that they turned his burial ground into a river and all his loyal soldiers into birds… Cause Greek Gods honor warriors in very weird ways. The story of Troy is filled with a lot of cool stuff that is sadly never adapted in most stories. Like, the fact that Fate GO is the only piece of media that I’ve seen that even references the fact that Amazons showed up in the war should speak to how little these other parts of the story get mentioned.
But man, Pent sure is useful if you know you’re going up against any Greek hero…
What I hate about most trojan war modern adaptations like The movie troy is The complete removal of all mythological aspects like The gods it's same problem with that boring Hercules movie starring the Rock what do these people have against mythology?
@@omarsalem1219 Some people just really, really fucking love mud fantasy for some godforsaken reason. The story of Camelot has the same issue.
@@omarsalem1219 Or retconning Thor into a high tech super alien because *Cant offend the Christians by using the G word*
@@Nazuiko They literally still call him a god in the movies.
I heard the combatting overpopulation thing, but specifically overpopulation of heroic demigods. Zeus is supposed to have decided that all of the heroes running around upsetting everything was making it too hard for the normies, and orchestrated a massive war to get them to all kill each other off.
So maybe he should learn to keep it in his pants to not increase their numbers further :p
@@arcticfox2490 fuck Zeus
breaking news: zeus sleeps with practically every woman in ancient greece and is SHOCKED to find out actions have consequences!!
Here is a source, it is in Catalogue of Woman of Hesiod, in the context of queen Helen herself:
Now all the gods were divided through strife; for at that very time Zeus who thunders on high was meditating marvellous deeds, even to mingle storm and tempest over the boundless earth, and already he was hastening to make an utter end of the race of mortal men, declaring that he would destroy the lives of the demi-gods, that the children of the gods should not mate with wretched mortals, seeing their fate with their own eyes; but that the blessed gods henceforth even as aforetime should have their living and their habitations apart from men. But on those who were born of immortals and of mankind verily Zeus laid toil and sorrow upon sorrow.
So Zeus in fact planned to end the lives of demi gods around that time, and set a rule that Gods should live apart from man (hidden, or in Heavens), and that gods should not mate anymore with any mortal.
@@arcticfox2490 OR maybe he should have a ton more demigods so that they won't stand out as much.
"When everyone is super, no one will be."
The frame where Achilles scares the holy shit out of agamemnon is gem I busted out laughing because that's basically a good representation of how their dynamic will kinda be in the war
this is really the OG Cinematic Universe. Imagine being that person who learned of all of these and put the pieces together.
*put
Red’s scholarly work on this channel is amazing and arguably more charming than Blue’s (she’s the reason I’ve been here for so long, sorry Blue)
That nerd would be king of the wigglers? 🤫
...Homer?
@@A_Black_Sheep94 I believe you have to be alive to hold that position? Also, while he was a master storyteller/weaver of tales; there is no evidence that he was an Einstein, a DaVinci, Socrates?
I love the fact that Cassandra is just, there in the video constantly panicking with everyone else (including Red) ignoring her
Yup. Very funny, and very in keeping with the story.
Hmmmnnn
Poor Cassandra she probably suffered more then anyone else in this cycle
It's weird to think that Athena would care about the "most beautiful" thing so I think that's why, in most story, they claim that it's for the "fairest goddess," which actually does apply to all three of them. Especially if you think about their gifts that they offer Paris. Aphrodite would be the only one to consider "fair" to mean "beautiful" while Hera would think of herself as a fair ruler and Athena as one of fair judgement since she was, supposedly, the one who created the concept democracy. (That and she is the goddess of wisdom, so you'd think that would also mean making good/wise decisions.)
Also, you gotta love Zeus hiding under two plates of cake in fear. That makes me laugh.
Love your interpretation about the "fair" thing, but I have a theory why Athena would care about being considered beautiful. She's not just a goddess of battle tactics, but crafts. While she has no interest in romance or sex, aesthetic beauty would still be a thing that she is technically a goddess of. Also, keep in mind her place in the family dynamic: She's one of Zeus's favorite children, specifically the favored of the two WAR deities. Being the goddess of strategy on top of that probably means she's not used to losing.
I like the 'fairest' interpretation, but are we sure that language is accurate to the source material? As in, 'fair' in English may certainly be able to be taken those ways, but in the original Ancient Greek, what vocabulary was used, and was it able to be interpreted in multiple ways like that?
Two problems:
1. I'm not sure the double meaning of "fairest" would apply in Ancient Greek.
2. Even if it did, Athena's attempts to bribe the judge and then go to war when he doesn't pick her are both very "unfair" actions, so they would disqualify that meaning.
According to my copy of the Iliad, the word used in the original Greek was 'kallistei', which doesn't have the same double use as the English 'fair', but I still think this is a very cool idea
Athena does in fact care about her appearance A LOT. So much so that when She invented the pan-flute, and threw it away when she realized she would have to puff out her cheeks to play it, so she threw it away because she wouldn't dare do anything that contorted her face that way
Then Pan the Satyr found the flutes, and kept it which earned it it's name
I love how all of Achilles' involvement is literally just "I'm sad, you're dead now, I'm sad again, I'm dead now"
More like "YAAAAY, WAR! Oh noes, war causes bad things? I'm sad, your're dead now." and so on and so forth.
Shout out to that daughter of Ares who singlehandedly ignited the concept of "hope this doesn't awaken anything in me!" In all of Troy's women, 10/10 i love her already and need an entire epic/movie just about her now
Honestly, given my power kink, She’s got my eye
Her legacy is a four star servant in FGO that HATES Achilles
@@Nobunga She's also really really B
@@Nobunga
You mean CEO Penthesilea 😏
@@Nobunga Also, the Persona of a main character in Persona 3.
Note on the River Styx thing with Achilles. There are actually versions where it isn't the River Styx but the ritual where Thetis tried to put him in the fire to burn away his mortality, but Peleus interrupted the ritual so Achilles is invincible everywhere but the heel. Red discussed this in her Persephone video with Demeter trying the same thing with that kid Demophoon.
That's right, and some say that Thetis had tried this with 5 of Achilles' siblings and they had all died. Peleus interrupting the ritual saved Achilles' life.
i always found it cool that in a way the Trojan horse is holy for Athena in a way, its basically strategy personified and fits right in her side of the "war" domain
Since Eris is supposed to throw the golden apple at Peleus and Thetis' wedding and Achilles is old enough to go fight by the time the Trojan War begins I like to imagine that the conflict over the apple lasted longer than we realize. Like maybe the goddesses spent a couple of decades (long enough for Achilles to be conceived, born, and grow to adulthood) pestering Zeus for a decision before he finally came up with the idea to foist his problem off on Paris. And he just spent that whole time desperately trying to give them the runaround.
If I recall correctly, he wasn't an adult when the war started. He was more like a teenager
Kinda. He was more of a teenager, but Achilles effectively was a child soldier send by Fate itself (no, not that Fate), and in some version, because he wanted to accompany Patroclus, since he was into the multi-national treaty of pritecting Helen
And Eris effectively was Proto-Maleficent, since the reason she did the apple thing was because she wasnt invided to Peleus and Thetis' weeding
Probably in some way because of Hera, considering how Zeus _knows_ better than to make her ticked off... plus, he's _married_ to her, so not claiming she's the most beautiful would make her right peeved.
Zeus might be willing to stick it wherever he can, but even he knows a bear trap when he sees one
@@kennyholmes5196 I mean, yes, but on the other hand saying that someone is more beautiful than Aphrodite is *also* a very dangerous thing to do xD
The play "The Trojan Women" details how the women of Troy deal with the sacking of their home. It's a fantastic play that breaks my heart.
The death of Andromache’s son will haunt me forever
It's my favorite Greek play. Really shows the horrors of war and how it wrecks and demoralizes both victors and vanquished.
"One word brings another" is probably one of my favorite simplistic quotes that I got from that play, and it's just one gut punch after another in it.
Euripides is just awesome.
Complete tonal whiplash, but I saw a production of Trojan Women that some of my friends were in and there’s a scene where Menelaus throws Helen to the ground and she had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction causing her breasts to fly out of her robe. I told my mom about it later and without missing a beat she deadpan said “did it launch your boat?”
I didn't know about this. Thank you for mentionning it.
"This ramsom is more than enough for one person's freedom!"
"But knowing you've lost her forever is priceless!"
9:33 backhanding a man that hard while depressed is impressive.
A couple of variations Ive found more common are:
1) agammemnon didn't exactly threaten Odysseus's son, but rather put him down in the path of the plow and then called Odysseus on it when he swerved to avoid the kid.
2) Achilles's guardians don't want him to go so they disguise him as a girl along with the daughters of the king he's staying with. Odysseus tricks them by laying out ribbons, jewelry, etc. However he also includes a wooden sword, which Achilles picks up with interest and then they ask him to come and he agrees
Achilles cover was also blown when he ended up knocking up the actual princess while disguised.
And in another version it was Palamedes that exposed Odysseus, later he got stoned to death after Odysseus framed him of betrayal
Wasn't girl Achilles called Pyrrha like the one that was Prometheus' son's wife?
@@Brian-tn4cd And that is why best girl gone too soon is named Pyrrha Nikos. (Hoping you get the reference)
Oh, and "Pyrrha" and one of the princesses that's harboring him have a kid, covered briefly in one of the later OSP Di-Vines
@@reyonXIII 5 Volumes past and there's still a twinge of pain
I really get the impression that the character most ancient greek storytellers ACTUALLY had the hots for wasn't Helen, but instead Achilles. with how many people he gets shipped with, however briefly.
Especially when you count in that, if memory serves, Agamemnon tricked Iphigenia into coming to the ritual site by claiming she was going there to marry Achilles, making four Achilles love interests in total!
More than the hots, that's the Shounen Hero Power.
The guy is so cool you OF COURSE ship people to him, men and women alike.
The only issue is that the ancients weren't above having their heroes boning the other part of the ship. Anime should learn something
99.9% invulnerable hunk? sign me up
There was also a story, I don't remember the source, where he sieges another town for supplies during the war and the king's daughter just opens the gates hoping he'd marry her. Achilles had straightup simps, both in the stories and among their writers I assume.
Well I mean this was written by Athenians who were all encouraged to be bum biters so that wouldn't surprise me...
I mean yeah ancient Greece was Hella gay, even the most renowned heros had some dude action on the side
The panel at 10:02 looks incredible.
In all seriousness, the art overall looks awesome and really shows how much you've grown as an artist since "The Iliad"
4:26 So, some people have the theory that the reason why they believed Cassandra that time was because she actually yelled: "He's the prince of the omen that will bring doom to Troy, kill him!"
And the people said: "Uhhhh oh! He's the lost prince, let's bring him back to the palace!"
Cassandra: "Noooo whyyyy"
Wonder why Cassandra never attempted a bit of reverse psycology.
My absolute favorite part of the Iliad is towards the very end when Priam goes up to the Achean camp to beg for his son's corpse. The pure love of a father for his son, which goes so deep that even Achilles' wrath subsides never fails to pull on those heartstrings.
If I remember, Achilles gives him 10 days to grieve the death of his son, and returns Hectors body. Agamemnon then decides that this is a great time for an invasion and his side gets absolutely fucked cause Achilles refuses to rejoin until the 10 days have ended.
@@alexcrick8010 Agamemnon really is just the worst
And then Paris gets shot in the dick and he doesnt give a shit. Dad of the year
@@alexcrick8010 had they existed back then, what sections of the Geneva Conventions would Agamemnon be breaking by doing that?
@@LordDeathwing17 yes
For the record, Red, your Iliad video is one of my absolute favourites and what lead me to the channel
I agree, it was a big help to my Iliad essay
Seconded. Or Fourth'd, I guess.
Don’t look at how long ago it came put
DITTO!~
Ultimately, without those early videos none of us would be here. Doesn't mean they're not embarrassing for Red to remember, of course...
3:59-I don't know why, but the image of Zeus cowering under two cake plates just broke me
it is a worthy image
Found this on TV Tropes under "The Dead Have Names" and was so fascinated, I just had to share:
"In The Iliad, many characters appear and are named only to be added to someone's body count. There's a very good reason for this: while lost to modern readers, Ancient Greeks knew that any named combatant of that era was a champion trained for years by multiple instructors and supported by the work of multiple people just so they could fight in their stead, to the point that it was more convenient to just capture a defeated enemy and then ransom them back, and having them appear just to be killed served to make the reader realize the waste of human lives and the horror of that war."
I've read the story about Helen being in Egypt! The version I read was called "The Greek Princess" and was in a book of Egyptian mythology. It basically says that she and Paris got blown to Egypt en route to Troy, and when the Egyptians found out what was going on, they hid Helen to save her from Paris. The "Helen" that went to Troy was actually just her "ka" (a sort of spirit double). After the war, Menelaus got guided to Egypt to get her back. Helen meanwhile had been staying in the temple of I think Hathor and actually kinda become associated with the goddess by the locals in some way.
Two things: (1) this sounds like a story that some priest made up to in order to justify syncretism between Helen and Hathor, and (2) such syncretism makes sense, because Hathor is a solar deity, and from what I've read in the academic literature, Helen is actually also descended from the Proto-Indo-European sun goddess. It's actually really interesting how Helen got a huge downgrade from "super powerful sun goddess" to "damsel in distress".
crack fanfic is ancient
Sheesh do the woman some justice
Not you the commenter, more just people who view this and see her as damsel in distress.
@@spencertang5155 eh... we must admit that Helen in the Iliad is basically a plot device.
Greek mythology has several women with agency and with strong personalities; Helen just isn't one of them.
@@spencertang5155 It shouldn't really come as a surprise. Authorial intent isn't everything, but Greeks were raving misogynists.
In Paris' defense, he was forced to choose between three ultra powerful, spiteful goddesses, so there was no way this was gonna turn out well for him.
I actually kinda respect him for his choice. He was offered power, glory or love, and he choose love. Because Paris was a simple dude who knew what made life worth living, and it wasn't crushing responsibility or slaughter on the battlefield.
He could have just gone with Athena’s reward and been a Trojan hero.
@@rickkcir2151 I mean to be king of the world Means you get all of it
The version my Greek teacher told was that Paris wanted to be diplomatic and split the apple, with some mush about the sum of their virtues. Hermes was all "These b*tches are not gonna settle and play nice; the smart game is to take a bribe so you will have at least 1/3 of a good life and someone to pass the blame to".
@@kayeka4123 i would respect that if he didn't already have a wife. So imo fuck 'em
at 3:43 at Erises bedside table, you can see a picture of her and Loki, as well as a christan book that came much later 'Paradise lost'. This and the Tokoyo and Beowolf seeing each other in the Tokoyo and the sea monster video led me to believe that on the OSP channel (or at least Red's side of the channel) all the myths and stories are true and are part of a grander and wider ''OSP Mythology Multiverse''. In this essay I will-
Finish the essay I'm begging
I read the Illias for the first time when I was 16 and was in full mythology passion mode.
Reading the endless lists of warriors, their dads and nicknames combined with my ADHD almost killed that passion.
thank god i didnt read the iliad my adhd ass couldn't
"Eris, Goddess of it's getting a little too chummy around here, wakes up one morning and choose's violence."
That right there is a perfect representation of Red being humorous while also being completely accurate to these myths and I love it.
*CHAOS REIGNS*
Hmm I dunno if I'd say this is Odysseus' fault. He may have made sure that "everyone" in Greece was honor bound to go to war to protect that marriage, but Paris is the one who shacked up with someone elses wife, Aphrodite is the one who handed said wife over to Paris, and Eris was the one who started the argument between the 3 goddesses in the first place. It's definitely more on their shoulders than Odysseus imo lmao. All HE did was make sure the ancient Greek version of a dating app went forward without the suitors killing eachother out of pettiness.
Yeah, i with you...i think that even Odysseus could not thought that this kind of war would happen over Helen got kidnap. All that he doing is just make sure every man stop fighting over a girl and let Helen choose her husband herself.
I'd rather blame Eris. All the others, if the idea crossed their minds, would easily feel guilty, but I would bet my right hand that Eris, goddess of discord, was laughing like a maniac and having the time of her life watching the mortals and heroes arguing and killing each other. She did her job well.
There's an old phrase out of Greece that hasn't really survived to the modern day: "The humour of the Fates is wry indeed.".
Yeah, the oath is what got all the armies to agree to fight Troy, but I put this more on Eris (for starting the contest with Hera, Athena and Aphrodite), Aphrodite (for offering a married woman as incentive), and Paris (who kidnapped a married woman just cause Aphrodite said he could have her)
I think the "Odysseus' fault" Joke is more in how people tend to overthink things after they've been through a lot. Odysseus absolutely did a good thing in preventing a buch of smaller wars, but he probably questioned how much of this mess was his fault because he technically had a hand in the setup.
I did a research paper on a classic painting of Paris and Helen in their chambers and I *tore into Paris* being a little coward and fuckboy. I got an A on the paper lol
The music that plays when that Amazon queen shows up at 8:55 is called “the planets,” it’s a great piece of music, there are seven parts about the seven planets. That bit is about Mars aka Ares. It influenced the score to Star Wars!
I feel so bad for Cassandra in the background, in a perpetual state of panicked mental breakdown from knowing what will happen and all the horrible steps along the way and never being able to do anything to stop it... :(
She should have used reverse talk the entire time.
Cassandra: "Yeah, bring in the wooden horse, it is definitly not a trap"
Troyans: "Yeah right, their is Cassandra with her wierd talk again. Obviously the Horse is a Tr..Oh Shit!"
It only gets worse for Cass after the Illiad. Look it up; it'll ruin your day. I blame Apollo.
@@tortis6342 While I certainly do feel bad for Cassandra, I don't know if Apollo should be blamed. After all, Cassandra said she would sleep with him if he gave her the gift of prophecy, but then went back on what she said after he gave her said gift. That meant 3 things:
-Apollo is the god of many domains, including truth: Cassandra basically *lied* to the *god of truth*.
-Breaking an oath is considered a serious deal back in those days (while Cassandra's promise to sleep with him might not be considered an oath, it was still a promise, pretty closely associated)
-She tricked/made a fool of a god; how can that *ever* be a good idea?
So really, while Cassandra didn't deserve the tragedy that befell her, she brought Apollo's curse on herself.
But another thing I find interesting is that Apollo fought on the Trojan's side during the war. He was basically on Cassandra's side the whole time... although why he didn't try to help her during the sack of Troy, I don't know. Maybe it had to do with Zeus ordering the gods not to interfere. Apollo did already go against those orders once when he helped kill Achilles, so maybe he was under closer watch by Zeus?
In love with the characterization of Achilles being absolutely PUMPED to fight and die in battle he doesn’t even have to be in and everyone else just being like “bro you good?”
Patroclus: Can we just not?
Achilles: What are you, gay or something?
Patroclus: ...
@@loadeddice4696 Achilles: Oh… sweet!
Thetis had hidden Achilles away on an island and disguised him as a girl, but Odysseus tricked him into coming out by visiting the island disguised as a peddler. While all the girls were interested in the things the "peddler" had brought, only one of them was interested in the deadly weapons for sale...
@@Blokewood3 Was kind of disappointed Red skipped that story. Mind, there was lots that needed skipping if she was going to make a fourteen minute video.
Teenage enthusiasm
11:20 I like him questioning things and in the background trying to destroy The horse
I love how Odysseus is kind of our protagonist through out the Trojan cycle. I also love the metal gear references about him, top 10 favorite Greek characters