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Overanalyzing Everyone's Intentions Here-Rachael Gregson



 First off, I'd like to say this is going to be a two part blog post, because a lot of things happened in this reading assignment that demands to be discussed. 

As with any war I've realized, it's tricky not to fall into the initial perspective I am given. I began this book skeptical of Hector because I was bias toward the movie Troy, which was told mostly through the eyes of Achilles, but neither were what I was expecting. It's actually funny that they both hold values completely opposite from one another. Hector represented everything related to city-state pride, honor, and humility whereas Achilles was everything wild, reckless, and unpredictable solitary. This isn't to say that Hector is all good and Achilles all bad. Both had instances where I rooted for the other more or less. I just thought it was interesting how their two personalities represented something that basically causes all wars: the clash between civilization and savagery. 

Secondly, I'm not defending the gods in the book when I say this, but maybe actually Athena did something excusable at the end when she took the form of Deiphobus and goaded Hector into fighting. True, this could just be another grab at puppetry, or it could be that the gods sometimes sped up the occurrence of things destined to pass. After all, Homer made it seem as if the gods themselves were reluctant to challenge fate as well. 

I commented on posts by Haley Riddle and Lily Caswell. 

Comments

  1. kaitlyn terryAugust 31, 2020 at 4:01 PM

    I love your view on Athena's decision at the end. While it can be incredibly infuriating to watch the gods interfere, it's not always a bad thing. Athena's decision to speed things up actually makes some sense, as it should, her being the goddess of wisdom and all.

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  2. Micah PowersSeptember 1, 2020 at 8:21 AM

    I agree with the prospect that most or all war is a class between civilization and savagery. At first I didn't, but the more I thought about it from each individual side they often think of the other as savages. The American Revolutionary War is a great example of this as the British thought of the colonies as savages but were clearly mistaken. Even World War II, Hitler thought of certain people as inherently savage and we (Americans and others) thought halter Savage for his disregard for the respect of human dignity.

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