>Glorious Odysseus: don’t try to reconcile me to my dying. I’d rather serve as another man’s labourer, as a poor peasant without land, and be alive on Earth, than be lord of all the lifeless dead. What the fuck was the actual point of this sequence? I never understood it. I was unironically filtered. Is it a war bad thing? Is it an existential, nothing-matters-when-you're-dead thing? Why is Achilles even there to begin with? It seems to undermine everything he was about in the Iliad in one sentence, which could be character development, but I don't buy that that's what Homer was going for.
>>25472601Ancient Greek cultural thing, living is good, being the best is great, being dead is bad and scary
>>25472606So death bad? That's it? They unironically brought Achilles back just to give a death bad message? Complete cape slop
>>25472610No, Homer brought Achilles back so we could see he spent all his time in the afterlife with his "friend" Patroclus.And also their ashes ended up in the same urn, because they were such good friends.
>>25472601>It seems to undermine everything he was about in the Iliad in one sentenceYes, that's the point. The glory of war and in general is completely worthless, it's a pointless dream. The Odyssey is wisdom after the stupidity of the events in the Illiad.
>>25472601Akhileus was overemotional in the Iliad and in the Odyssee. He did not break character. The point of it wasn't so much about Akhileus himself but about giving a message from beyond the grave which is storywise quite a strong device if you think about it. The question is who would you chose to talk to Odysseus and one of the first choices would be Akhileus
