So, I would like to talk about a few things, one of which includes the slaughter of the suitors. Yay! I'm gonna talk about something a lot of other people have talked about!
So, first off, I didn't see what Odysseus did as vigilantism because he was told that there was a prophecy that included him going back to Ithaca and slaughtering the suitors. In my eyes, he was just following his Fate. Okay, so maybe it wasn't completely necessary to kill all of the suitors, but I found it really satisfying. They were mostly depicted as being stupid (being fooled for 3 years...not gonna get into that...so not worth ranting about...again...), being quite rude (using up Odysseus' wealth), being hypocritical (telling beggar Odysseus that he shouldn't go around leeching off the wealth of others), and just downright being annoying and refusing the LEAVE ITHACA AFTER LIKE 4-5 YEARS.
Next, I know people probably are grossed out by what I thought about the description of the slaughter but I still do think it should have been more descriptive. Maybe I just like violence more because I'm a messed up human being, but I feel the slaughter was over too quickly. Yeah, actually, I'll go with that. It was a slaughter, not a fight. Odysseus went into some berserker rage and literally killed anybody and everybody in his way until Telemachus convinced Odysseus to not kill the bard. Because of this berserker rage, everybody in Odysseus' way was annihilated. Having weapons didn't even help, if anything, it might have made Odysseus angrier. I mean, I like that it wasn't a super drawn out battle, but it was too short. It's like in other Greco-Roman epics, most fights are just, "These two awesome warriors and their super descriptive looks were getting ready to fight, they engage, and one of them comes out victorious." A bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point, hopefully.
And now about Athena. I really am so conflicted on what to think. She wanted the slaughter of the suitors, but then doesn't want to witness another fight? I mean, she was able to bless Laertes so he could easily kill Eupithes, father of Antinous-I'm-A-Huge-Dick-That-Can-Only-Mooch-Or-Be-A-Crappy-Suitor with one throw of the spear. That's just awesome. Yet she doesn't want Odysseus to have another slaughter? I get that she didn't want a war to break out, but I think this war would be nothing compared to the Trojan War.
Lastly, I would like to say that Odysseus fits in the Greco-Roman hero mold in another way other than his generic heroic qualities and fatal flaw. He's descended from Zeus. I'm not gonna give the name of Odysseus' grandfather who's the son of Zeus because I just don't want to try to find it again.
That's all. Bye.
Honestly, the problem with a lot of fight scenes for me is they just get really boring -- "they shot them and then there was some blood etc etc." Yeah the fight was pretty one-sided but I did like Odysseus's plea to Athena when it wasn't as totally effortless as he may have expected once the suitors got armor (and then Athena's rebuttal).
ReplyDeleteFor the war thing -- I do think Athena partially was into the violence thing but (like you said) the slaughter in the halls can be justified. Slaughtering the relatives of dicks gets fuzzier so it's better to just cut it off there.
I think what seemed unjust about the slaughter of the suitors for me was that Odysseus couldn't have known how everyone had behaved while he was gone, since he wasn't there. Basically, he was just killing everyone indiscriminately, based on the stories he had been told and the way he had seen them act for the few days he was there in disguise. Even though it might have been his fate, just blindly following what a prophecy has told you is going to happen is not a great idea.
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