John Constantine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
talentforlying) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2019-08-09 11:28 am
talentforlying) wrote in fandomhigh2019-08-09 11:28 am
Gods & Monsters: Divine Trickery, Friday, Second Period.
"Most people, if you say 'Odysseus,' don't know who the fuck you're going on about," John began as the class settled, pacing the room. "Some will connect him with the Odyssey, or the Trojan Horse, but not many, because the classics aren't taught as much anymore."
"What most people don't realize is that he was the grandson of famous thief Autolycus, and the great-grandson of the Olympian god Hermes. Both tricksters in their own rights, though Odysseus took it to extremes. Hell, thin-blooded as he was, he might still be running around, pulling his nonsense. You never know with godspawn."
"Odysseus first really starts popping up in the great narrative of Greek history when he manages to keep everyone from killing each other when Helen -- yes, that Helen -- gets married. There was such a fight over her sister, that he contrives a peace that all must support whomever she marries, to put an end to stabbing and bride-stealing and wars. So, when Helen is abducted -- or runs away, depending on who you talk to -- Menelaus calls upon the other suitors to honour their oaths and help him to retrieve her, an attempt that leads to the Trojan War. Because men are shite if they care about nonsense like honour. Don't date blokes like that."
"Odysseus, despite being the one who came up with the bloody idea, tries to avoid it by feigning lunacy, as an oracle had prophesied a long-delayed return home for him if he went. He hooks a donkey and an ox to his plow starts sowing his fields with salt. Palamedes, at the behest of Menelaus' brother Agamemnon, seeks to disprove Odysseus' madness and places Telemachus, Odysseus' infant son, in front of the plow. Odysseus veers the plow away from his son, thus exposing his fakery. Odysseus holds a grudge against Palamedes during the entire war for dragging him away from his home, and can't say I blame him."
"Now that he's recuited, Odysseus and other envoys of Agamemnon travel to Scyros to recruit Achilles because of a prophecy that Troy could not be taken without him. We're not going to talk about that one, because it's a bunch of gender-binary fucking nonsense, but basically Odysseus tricks Achilles into revealing himself, because fuck this, if he has to go, so does everyone else."
"Bloke just wanted to stay home with his wife and kid, and he was going to do everything he could to end this war and get back as soon as possible. But when you're the great-grand of a god, that ain't gonna happen. Once the Story has hold of you, you're stuck, you mad bastard, and few tricks can get you free."
"What most people don't realize is that he was the grandson of famous thief Autolycus, and the great-grandson of the Olympian god Hermes. Both tricksters in their own rights, though Odysseus took it to extremes. Hell, thin-blooded as he was, he might still be running around, pulling his nonsense. You never know with godspawn."
"Odysseus first really starts popping up in the great narrative of Greek history when he manages to keep everyone from killing each other when Helen -- yes, that Helen -- gets married. There was such a fight over her sister, that he contrives a peace that all must support whomever she marries, to put an end to stabbing and bride-stealing and wars. So, when Helen is abducted -- or runs away, depending on who you talk to -- Menelaus calls upon the other suitors to honour their oaths and help him to retrieve her, an attempt that leads to the Trojan War. Because men are shite if they care about nonsense like honour. Don't date blokes like that."
"Odysseus, despite being the one who came up with the bloody idea, tries to avoid it by feigning lunacy, as an oracle had prophesied a long-delayed return home for him if he went. He hooks a donkey and an ox to his plow starts sowing his fields with salt. Palamedes, at the behest of Menelaus' brother Agamemnon, seeks to disprove Odysseus' madness and places Telemachus, Odysseus' infant son, in front of the plow. Odysseus veers the plow away from his son, thus exposing his fakery. Odysseus holds a grudge against Palamedes during the entire war for dragging him away from his home, and can't say I blame him."
"Now that he's recuited, Odysseus and other envoys of Agamemnon travel to Scyros to recruit Achilles because of a prophecy that Troy could not be taken without him. We're not going to talk about that one, because it's a bunch of gender-binary fucking nonsense, but basically Odysseus tricks Achilles into revealing himself, because fuck this, if he has to go, so does everyone else."
"Bloke just wanted to stay home with his wife and kid, and he was going to do everything he could to end this war and get back as soon as possible. But when you're the great-grand of a god, that ain't gonna happen. Once the Story has hold of you, you're stuck, you mad bastard, and few tricks can get you free."
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During the Lecture
Story time!
"The Trojan Horse is a story from the Trojan War about the subterfuge that the Greeks used to enter the independent city of Troy and win the war. After a fruitless 10-year siege, Odyessus had had enough, and came up with a plot. The Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse, and hid a select force of men inside including Odysseus. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving behind a dedication to Athena on the horse, for safe passage home, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy and to claim the favor of Athena for themselves. That night the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of night. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city of Troy, ending the war."
"This is not a happily ever after. They ended it, by committing horrific war crimes. Sacrifice and murder of children, assaulting women and selling them into slavery or killing them, killing every man in the city. We're not just talking about the ruling family, we're talking the entire civilian population. Defiling of holy temples. The works. Odysseus himself still won't make it home for another ten years."
"When he gets there, he slaughters every man that tried to woo his wife, thinking her a widow. He kills all the household maids and female slaves that were serving those men for disloyalty. He plans to plunder nearby islands to replenish his herds and his farm, and almost kills the citizens of his own city for allowing their sons to try and woo his wife. After, y'know, the man has been missing twenty fucking years with no word."
"Homer's Iliad and Odyssey portray Odysseus as a culture hero, but the Romans, who believed themselves the heirs of Prince Aeneas of Troy, considered him a villainous falsifier. In Virgil's Aeneid, he is constantly referred to as cruel or deceitful. In Euripides' tragedy Iphigenia at Aulis, having convinced Agamemnon to consent to the sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess Artemis, Odysseus facilitates the immolation by telling Iphigenia's mother, Clytemnestra, that the girl is to be wed to Achilles. Odysseus' attempts to avoid his sacred oath to defend Menelaus and Helen offended Roman notions of duty, and the many stratagems and tricks that he employed to get his way offended Roman notions of honour. But, well, you lot already know what I think about that, though it does boil down to if Helen ran away or was kidnapped, doesn't it? It's one thing to help someone who's been legit stolen away. It's another to make it all about you and not them."
So, I'd like you to think about where the line is -- what's a trick versus what's a lie, and where the line is. For you, for others. Is it the intent? The result? Because unlike some of the other stories I've told you this semester, this one has victims. Real, actual victims, who did nothing other than be in the wrong spot at the wrong time."
Talk to John
ooc