Trailer The Odyssey full trailer

[Morrus]

Wrong category and not a good comparison, the Odyssey is more comparable to the Passion of the Christ, not Lord of the Rings, its concidered sacred text along with the rest of the Greek Epic Cycle, a set of 8 religious epic poems, of which only 2 survive (with two functional prequels of sorts), which inspired Roman Religious Epic Poems.

Folks forget the ancients and neopagans alike don't view Homer like J.R.R Tolkien, J.R.R Martin, Ed Greenwood, or RA Salvatore, he was divinely inspired, the neoplatonists in particular worked hard to reconcile Homer with Plato (also seen as divinely inspired) in their theology.

I think folks have seen Polythiest Gods in comic books and comic book movies so often, which is fine I love those movies too they help keep interest in the Gods alive for future generations, that they forget the actual religious source of those myths.

Are you saying that Poseidon and the Cyclops and Scylla, and the Sirens are real? I don't think you'll get much traction on that.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Are you saying that Poseidon and the Cyclops and Scylla, and the Sirens are real? I don't think you'll get much traction on that.

In the same way some people believe that Jehovah, angels and demons exist, presumably. Granted, the scale of current believers is ridiculously different, but I see the point they're making.

It's actually a decent analogy in this thread, because there's a lot of different interpretations of that mythology, too. I remember a lot of people (in my circles, anyway) noting the whitewashing when Passion of the Christ came out.

 

[myrkulyte]

Are you saying that Poseidon and the Cyclops and Scylla, and the Sirens are real? I don't think you'll get much traction on that.

The influence of the gods can be read as I think entirely, or at the least mostly metaphorical. Sure the text says Athena makes Odysseus look different or that Poseidon causes storms to crash Odysseus's ship but the works of the gods are not miraculous. Their existence in the next could be viewed as a matter of belief even if there isn't any practicing religion today that views the poem in this light.

 

[Clint_L]

The influence of the gods can be read as I think entirely, or at the least mostly metaphorical. Sure the text says Athena makes Odysseus look different or that Poseidon causes storms to crash Odysseus's ship but the works of the gods are not miraculous. Their existence in the next could be viewed as a matter of belief even if there isn't any practicing religion today that views the poem in this light.

You can read anything metaphorically, of course. Plenty of religious folks read the bible metaphorically, especially the parts they disagree with. I have no idea how the ancient Greeks saw this text, but I’m not sure it really matters in the context of a modern film adaptation.

 

[myrkulyte]

You can read anything metaphorically, of course. Plenty of religious folks read the bible metaphorically, especially the parts they disagree with. I have no idea how the ancient Greeks saw this text, but I’m not sure it really matters in the context of a modern film adaptation.

Yes of course. The point being made I think was that the Odyssey is not of the same genre as Wheel of Time and this should come across differently on screen. I see a lot of comments online where people bring up the obviously fantastical nature of the monsters in the Odyssey to make a point, but I think Odysseus's confrontations with the monsters generally have more in common with fables than the battle of Helm's Deep. The fantastical elements of the Odyssey are substantively different from those that appear in modern fantasy even though they're superficially similar and one is clearly influenced by the other.

The Bible lends itself to metaphorical readings, as does The Odyssey. The Wheel of Time does not, or at least not nearly as easily as the other two examples.

 

[Gradine]

The ancient Greeks by and large viewed their pantheon less as beings to worship and more so to placate. They had a very different approach to piety than their neighbors tended to (or even the Romans who eventually absorbed them did).

That said, The Odyssey is not remotely analogous to holy texts or scripture and was largely viewed as mythological even by those who consumed it. In the sense that it contains applicable religious sentiments and lessons it actually has a great deal more in common with Wheel of Time than you might think.

 

[The Firebird]

There’s now an excellent article by Bret Devereaux (professor of military history, ACOUP etc) about idiots on X who don’t know a damn thing about the classics:

Why Stone-Faced Fascists Keep Getting Antiquity Wrong

Online bigotry masquerading as a love of history in the fever swamps of Elon Musk’s X.

www.thebulwark.com

This article is terrible.

Feel free to offer your counter arguments and refutations, with references if possible.

I don't have a horse in the race--I hope it is a good movie! But I had the same response as @AnotherGuy that the style and argumentation are poor. The author overuses left branching sentences ("... ... ... ...and now we get the point") and fills his sentences with so many unnecessary asides and swipes that is difficult to read. One gets the sense that the actual content could fit in just a few paragraphs.

 

[myrkulyte]

That said, The Odyssey is not remotely analogous to holy texts or scripture and was largely viewed as mythological even by those who consumed it. In the sense that it contains applicable religious sentiments and lessons it actually has a great deal more in common with Wheel of Time than you might think.

Yes I see your point but also I highly disagree lol. Religious texts and mythology are comparable because they are two types of texts that are highly interpretable and can sustain opposed interpretations, sometimes diametrically opposed. Their social roles are very different, but as texts themselves I would argue they are very similar.

While we can bring whatever critical lens to Wheel of Time we want, the text itself is less open to interpretation, more prescriptive in the readings it supports.

It's a difference of style or of type. The Odyssey is an Epic and it really demands interpretation by the reader in a way that most traditional/modern novels don't. This is the major thing that I am thinking of, and it is, in my view, the single most important element of the poem. I think it puts it more on common ground with a religious text than a novel.

How does one translate that to a movie? Could not even begin to answer.

 

[trappedslider]

It's a difference of style or of type. The Odyssey is an Epic and it really demands interpretation by the reader in a way that most traditional/modern novels don't.

does it? This feels very much like the meme of: "what the teacher says it means vs what/why the writer did."

 

[AnotherGuy]

Oh good God, man, please do that, just go and learn some Ancient Greek and find the text, it’s not very hard. Google can’t really help you much here, it’s exactly the sort of thing it gets wrong.

You and Emily perhaps need to read Murray, as your claim that no one used the word slave in a translation before Emily is not true. I could point you to Book 17 between 311 and 324 and there are others.
Butler also uses the words slave and slavery.
I could indeed go on if you would like.

Otherwise you’re presenting exactly the position that Bret Devereaux decries.

Back at you.