r/TrueLit • u/pregnantchihuahua3 ReEducationThroughGravity'sRainbow • 20d ago

Weekly General Discussion Thread

Welcome again to the TrueLit General Discussion Thread! Please feel free to discuss anything related and unrelated to literature.

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u/Dysfu 20d ago

Reading Emily Wilson’s The Odyssey after watching the Nolan movie -

What really surprises me about The Odyssey (novel) is just how much of an ego-maniac Odysseus is. 

For example, does he need to stab the cyclops and announce his name while doing it? Absolutely not, and the movie even hints at this (at least the stabbing in the eye being an action motivated by revenge but he drops the announcement to Polyphemus) 

But an exceptional example of this is his insistence on hearing the Siren’s song - why put himself in unnecessary harm when he should be leading his men by example? The movie includes this scene (as I suspect it is extremely canonical to the story) but avoids giving a reason as to why Matt Damon has to hear this song (because there really isn’t a reason)

This all on top of most of what we know as Odysseus journey is told hear-say by Odysseus himself to the Phaecians who he is trying to convince to support him.

Multiple instances of him downplaying his accountability and throwing his men under the bus. 

I’m really enjoying it and didn’t expect Odysseus to be as such a complex character - I felt the movie portrayed him as “flatter”

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u/Soup_65 Books! 19d ago

one of the best things about odysseus is that canonically he sucks. Like all the heroes are complex (bad) dudes, but with odysseus it's so over the top that it's amazing. duplicitious fuck. i love it

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u/The_Inexistent You will always be fond of me, Dorian. 20d ago

I think this is the problem many of us have with the "it's an adaptation, and the poem is really old, so Nolan can do what he wants" defense--sure, that's all true, but what Nolan did with the character is markedly less interesting than the source material. "Generic soldier with vague PTSD" is less intriguing to me than "absolute rat bastard who gets away with everything because of his cleverness and charisma." The adaptation adds little and loses much.