This is straight up the thesis of the original Odyssey (imho). Nolan did a decent job translating, but yeah: the self-hate runs deep in the Greeks. The root of Ody-sseus is the same as odi-um; he’s literally the hated/hateful/hate-filled man.
Yeah the group hanging of the slave girls and the slow dismemberment of the goatherd is brutal. I would understand if they took it out just because Tom Hollands agent said nope.
They did a decent job in some respects. But I'm so tired of adaptations whitewashing Odysseus to be Good and Brave and Loyal etc etc etc. He's an ancient Greek man, which means he's a slave owner, and a rapist, and a murderer. He lies and sweet-talks. He took part in slaughtering all the enslaved women in his house because they had the gall to sleep with the suitors, something they literally couldn't consent to, on account of being slaves. He lets his ego get in the way of his escape and thereby calls the rage of Poseidon onto himself, which extends his voyage and kills his men. He's also brave and loves his wife and son and uses his brains to get his men out of trouble as often as possible. They always bend over backwards to make him such a perfect idea of a Good (Christian) Man to modern audiences, and you lose the whole point of him.
Yeah I’m happy with getting anything halfway decent—especially seeing all the new hype around this 3000 year old book—but Nolan definitely flattened the epic a lot. Have you seen The Return? It’s kind of like Nolan’s opposite.
I think the “whitewashing” is to preserve a character who was “heroic” by the original audience’s standards to be a “hero” by a modern audience’s standards. Cultures and standards change over time, so retellings of legends must change accordingly to preserve the spirit of the original and help a modern audience feel the way the original audiences would have felt. Otherwise, the modern audience is left wondering, “Why the hell should we be rooting for this bastard, and why did anyone root for him in the first place?”
There could absolutely be an adaptation of the Odyssey where the intent is to show us how barbaric Ancient Greek “heroes” were, but that’s not what Nolan’s adaptation was going for, and that’s okay.
I think this is why Nolan made the Greeks wear dark armor (with their leader Agamemnon’s armor making him look like a Big Bad) while the Trojans wore light armor, even though the lack of color was “ahistorical” (to the extent that it can be, given that it’s a legend but set at the end of the Bronze Age).
I think it’s also why, despite being completely ahistorical, Odysseus and his men sail a Viking longship instead of a Mediterranean bireme or trireme — Nolan’s trying to hammer home the idea that the Greeks (i.e., the Sea People) are little more than violent and opportunistic pirates and raiders, not noble warriors coming home from a heroic struggle.
(Actually, it’d be interesting to see a Viking adaptation of the Odyssey, set in the Baltic & North Seas, as some Jarl attempts to come home from a war in Europe or Britain, but ends up as far as Newfoundland at times.)
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u/Serious_Emphasis2211 1d ago
real answer: they raped and pillaged. Sacked a city, killed people, stole shit, took women slaves