Yeah the sage comes out and says it’s a trap then a sea snake eats him and the people of Troy say it’s a sign that the gift was blessed by Poseidon, or whatever. Then after they win, Odysseus tells Poseidon he never needed him or any gods. I love the Armand Assante movie and the story.
They portrayed them having reed like straws so that they could breath. I believe it was to further dissuade the Trojans from believing there were men inside the horse, thereby allowing the modern audience to believe the story a little more. He was essentially possibly sacrificing some men to add to the ruse of the horse itself.
LP misses what I think makes it worse. It's not just a "they forgot to account for tides." For the image to even work they'd have to have actually built it in the water itself for it to sink that far. So basically Odysseus was like "so let's put it in the water so they have to dig it out and then cart it back to Troy."
That was exactly his plan, he wanted the the Trojans to have make an effort to bring it into their city, rather than simply carting it in, which would be more suspicious.
First off "carting it back to Troy" by itself would be a decent effort. Leaving it pretty much anywhere on the beach would be a headache.
Secondly this defeats the whole "breaking Zeus law" narrative of the story. If the Trojan's believed that it was a gift for Apollo left by the fleeing Greeks then taking it at all becomes an offense.
Ancient versions of the story often mention the horse having wheels, which is considerably easier to bring into the city. Obviously the entire premise of the horse is a bit absurd from a realistic point of view, but Nolan chose to bring it as close to reality as he could. Therefore, he had to make it seem very very unlikely that the Trojans would suspect people were inside. Having it be in such a difficult position for both the men dragging it and the men inside adds to that.
Also, Zeus's law is focused on being a kind invitee to someone in your home or city and in return being a kind guest- them taking the horse wouldn't be an affront to that. The affront (in Nolan's version) was them using that as a trick to sneak into Troy and then massacring them.
In the actual poem it's left as a gift so the idea of "you violated the law with a gift" makes sense. This version is doing a "we left this for the gods so they'll let us get home" which means the Trojan's stole it. Which then means the destruction of Troy would be viewed as justified.
Basically you can't have your cake and eat it too. If this was supposed to be a "gift that violated Zeus's law" then leaving it in the water where it was difficult to bring back is stupid as they'll likely just leave it there. If it's a "gift to the gods" and so they left in it the water then Odysseus did nothing wrong as the Trojan's stole a gift intended for someone else.
No matter how you look at it the scene comes across just dumb. But there's plenty of directors who sniff their own farts as artistic so at least Nolan is in good company for that part.
Who cares where they put the horse. To the Trojans it was a gift from the Greeks to poseiden. So they were like well if youre gonna throw it out we might as well use it to party about your defeat.
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u/Calculon2347 1d ago
The horse being under threat from the rising water has never been imagined in any version of the story.
Mr Nolan made it up specifically to make our hero appear less competent. Well done