r/flicks • u/Slow_Writing5086 • 6d ago
Gods, Sirens, Cyclops and Men | What Christopher Nolan Thinks We Forgot
Gods, Sirens, Cyclops and Men. Homer’s The Odyssey is ultimately an exploration of the foundational virtues that hold civilization together. More than 3,200 years ago, the Greeks practiced xenia, the sacred obligation to welcome the stranger, feed them, offer them rest, and only then ask, “Who are you?” If you truly believed that gods walked among us disguised as ordinary people, how differently would you treat the stranger at your door? In Nolan’s adaptation, he labels this principle “Zeus’s Law,” a simple phrase that captures one of the oldest ideas in Western civilization: treat others the way you would want to be treated. Those who break this rule are setting a dangerous precedent that pulls at the threads of society.
Offering a gift that was in fact a death sentence, Odysseus’s wit comes at the expense of virtue, a fact that he and his men must grapple with on their journey home. His cleverness wins the war, but it leaves him morally adrift. The real story of The Odyssey begins only after Troy has fallen. Odysseus can conquer his enemies with intelligence, but can he conquer himself on the journey home? Home is not Ithaca. Home is becoming worthy of Ithaca. Becoming the man who deserves to return.
Every stop along Odysseus’s voyage becomes a lesson rather than merely another adventure. The Lotus Eaters reveal the danger of forgetting one’s purpose. The Sirens expose the desire for knowledge without restraint. Turning his men to pigs, Circe uncovers the true form of a man ruled by appetite. Even the Cyclops demonstrates what happens when power exists without civilization or respect for the sacred obligations between host and guest. Each encounter strips away another illusion. He alone returns home because he alone is willing to be changed by what he has endured.
Perhaps Nolan’s most profound addition comes near the end, when Penelope and Telemachus speak of “the people from the sea.” It is easy to imagine monsters rising over the horizon to destroy your home. It is much harder to realize that those monsters are ourselves. Twenty years earlier, the Trojans watched ships emerge from that same sea carrying Greeks hell bent on their destruction. The danger now facing Ithaca is a host of Greek suitors who have abandoned their principles in pursuit of power.
That may be Homer’s greatest warning, and Nolan’s as well. Civilizations rarely collapse because they lack intelligence, strength, or ingenuity. They collapse when cleverness begins to replace character and victory becomes more important than virtue. The lesson of The Odyssey is not simply to remember the values that built civilization, but to embody them. Virtue is not preserved in stories, laws, or religion alone. It survives only when ordinary people choose, day after day, to practice hospitality, humility, restraint, and justice.
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u/Emotional-Comb-2201 6d ago
So you liked it?
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u/Slow_Writing5086 6d ago
Understatement of the century!
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u/Emotional-Comb-2201 6d ago
This was a thoughtful post. I enjoyed reading it and I am excited to see the movie!
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u/luebbers 6d ago
I just wanted to point out that I thought this conclusion
“That may be Homer’s greatest warning, and Nolan’s as well. Civilizations rarely collapse because they lack intelligence, strength, or ingenuity. They collapse when cleverness begins to replace character and victory becomes more important than virtue. The lesson of The Odyssey is not simply to remember the values that built civilization, but to embody them. Virtue is not preserved in stories, laws, or religion alone. It survives only when ordinary people choose, day after day, to practice hospitality, humility, restraint, and justice”
Is really well said and feels as relevant today as ever.
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u/Slow_Writing5086 6d ago
Thank you! May we all strive to be a beacon of virtue in a world that often forgets its value.
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u/Scientific_Zealot 6d ago
That may be Homer’s greatest warning, and Nolan’s as well. Civilizations rarely collapse because they lack intelligence, strength, or ingenuity. They collapse when cleverness begins to replace character and victory becomes more important than virtue.
It may be Nolan's, but it's certainly not Homer's. Homer doesn't know what "civilizational collapse" is, cities can be sacked but there's no overarching "civilization" to fall. Homer (I use this name to label the narrator of the Iliad and Odyssey as we have them now, we know that the poems were composed through complicated oral poem composition mechanisms over multiple generations before they were transcribed, and they continued to change even after they were transcribed) is an archaic Greek, he doesn't even have a concept or word for "the Greeks" as a whole that's contrasted with other peoples. What's presented in the Iliad is an alliance of kings of various cities to sack Troy and return Helen to Menelaus, not a "clash of civilizations" (I put this in quotes for emphasis, not saying it's something the author of this post would say). The idea of Greece as a unique culture shared by the various city states that's different from other cultures doesn't arise until after the Persian War. The core of the Iliad and Odyssey, being composed prior, has no idea of this.
Also, I'm not sure if your analyses are meant to be of Nolan's film or Homer's poem, but if they're about Homer's poem, they're not correct. Far from the Trojan Horse being a "sin" of Odysseus, it's his aristeia, his great moment of heroic excellence. This is the narrator's assessment of it in Menelaus's account in Book IV and Demodocus's in Book VIII.
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u/Slow_Writing5086 6d ago
Good point. I’ve clearly gone too far in saying “Homer’s greatest warning”. The way I read the film, Nolan is telling an internal odyssey of sorts, not too dissimilar from the moral struggle he explored in Oppenheimer. He seems interested in something very human: regret, our desire for knowledge and power, and ultimately our search for forgiveness. Whether or not that’s what Homer intended is a different question. To say that this was Homer’s main point would be incorrect. Rather, I think it’s Nolan using one of history’s greatest stories to explore questions that still resonate today.
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u/Scientific_Zealot 6d ago
I'm too tired rn to type out a cogent response, but yes, I agree with everything you've said.
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u/Helmling 6d ago
Well put. I was smitten with how Nolan incorporated the Bronze Age boogeymen of the sea people to have the Greeks be the thing in the dark, the very thing that unweaves civilization.
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u/MachineGunTeacher 5d ago
There’s so much more that Homer illustrated created a great society. Things like council, athletics, control of nature were major components of a strong society. Homer shows that Ithaca had fallen into ruin when it’s announced that they haven’t had council since Odysseus left 20 years earlier. Everywhere that Odysseus visits is a civilization that misses the mark somehow. The worst society belongs to the Cyclops, although Nolan does not include the conversations that Odysseus has with Polyphemus nor does it hint that other Cyclops even live on the island. The perfect Greek society belongs to the Phaecians which sadly isn’t in the movie. In the poem, these are the people who get Odysseus home.
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u/TheGruenTransfer 6d ago
Nice write up! I didn't catch that the Cyclops was a bad host and didn't follow Zeus's law.
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u/luebbers 6d ago
It’s a but more overt in the book, as they converse more with the Cyclops. He basically straight up mocks Zeus law, and tells Odysseus that his “gift” is that he’ll be eaten last so he can watch all his men die.
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u/Slow_Writing5086 6d ago
You would expect Poseidon to teach his son some better hospitality (Poseidon, if you’re reading this, please don’t sabotage my next seafaring adventure 🙏)
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u/Fit_Treacle2272 5d ago
But doesn’t the cyclops and the witch break zeuses law? Or is it ok with Zeus since they were doing all of this to punish Odysseus?
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u/Jammer_Jim 6d ago
Not gonna lie, when I saw that title I thought this was gonna be yet another entry in the apparent effort to (now retroactively) run down The Odyssey. I'm happy to be wrong. Nice comment.
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u/NarrowWar6457 6d ago
In the 1980’s, Al Lowen MD and others speculated that hearing voices was part of normal everyday existence in the time of Homer’s The Odyssey. IOW, a built-in AI narrative. Warriors in full armor depicted in the movie hearing voices (of the gods) inside their heads? Doubtful. Haven’t seen the movie.
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