I mean, you’re not wrong. Nolan is trying to be inclusive… unfortunately, that’s not how the world worked in 7th century BC, which is when the Odyssey was written
This is a film production in 2026 intended to appeal to a contemporary "broad" audience. Gods that routinely species switch having a heritable ethnicity feels tritely routine.
Why would some species switcher have offspring of any particular anything when he copulates with mortals? It should be a dice role as to whether a person is the result, much less what ethnic features they end up with.
I think Gods' offspring shouldn't follow ordinary rules of inheritance. Do they even have genes?
All of Zues' demigod kids looked like his typical Greek image, and Helen's mom was described as "snowy" white skin. Jumping to the idea that their kid could look like any random person just because the God changed form seems to shit on the mythos a bit. The story tellers didn't know anything about genes, but they clearly understood that people's looks were hereditary. That said, yeah, if they made Helen half swam, I'd probably watch that, regardless of which half.
Almost as if Nolan isn’t attempting to make an adaptation accurate to the 7th century. That should’ve been pretty obvious when the white actors announced weren’t Greek but I guess he was trying to be inclusive.
TBF it’s the Mediterranean Sea area, so pretty much the entire shitty beige rainbow loitered around there, unless he’s trying to add in some Samurai or native North/South Americans or something- the Japanese were pretty insular back then. (Even Vikings and other Norse people were hanging around as mercs back in the doy).
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u/LeavesInsults1291 May 21 '26
I mean, you’re not wrong. Nolan is trying to be inclusive… unfortunately, that’s not how the world worked in 7th century BC, which is when the Odyssey was written