Christopher Nolan’s flick The Odyssey is probably a work of marketing genius, or maybe not, we will see.
Many are now saying ‘based’ culture warriors and those repelled by certain very outré casting choices have got it wrong and it is actually good.
However, you will never convince me the casting was not epic trolling: a black actress as Helen of Troy, possessed of a face unlikely to have launched a thousand ships, at least not in her direction; an African-American rap singer; a transgender actress playing Sinon (a character actually from Virgil’s Aeneid); and the goddess Athena played by Zendaya Coleman, an actress known for practicing economy of expression.
I have not seen Nolan’s Odyssey and probably never will, not for any particularly ideological reason but because of what an old chum of mine with whom I did Classics observed after seeing it.
“They replaced the trickster polytropos Odysseus with some other chap, who strangely was also called Odysseus.”
Yes, my friend is a bit of a wag, but he does read Latin and Greek, and if I am going to watch something called The Odyssey, I want the protagonist to be Odysseus, not just called Odysseus.
If the movie turns out to be conservative-safe and based, I’d have to say that the far-out but token casting aberrations were a brilliant marketing move.
What other movie has everyone been talking about for the past several weeks?
It is a curious thing really. Why would hollywood be making a movie that really would appeal to conservatives — I mean liberals are hardly interested in the mythology of a bunch of white, patriarchal colonials whose ideas are very much part of the foundational ideas of America.
But on the other hand they want to offend these same people with completely ridiculous casting choices.
But I think certainly a part of the root of this is that this is a movie designed to be for Oscars, and you can’t get an Oscar if all your damn Greeks and all your damn soldiers are white dudes.
I think I’d enjoy a movie about the Odyssey, but I’m pretty sure I won’t watch this, and if I did, I’d be just constantly irritated by it. Why? Because pretty much every Hollywood movie provokes in me those feelings, and this one would no doubt take that to the max.
Of course we can all comfort ourselves with the notion that Hollywood is part of the past not part of the future.
Btw, regarding my comment of Hollywood being part of the past not the future, it is worth looking at this:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2079758604656316619
I thought that, but on reflection (I have not seen it yet but I probably will) the two offending cast members – Page and Nyongo – are on screen for about 3% of the movie.
It’s on the trailers where you see them the most. Almost as if it was misdirection of a sort.
So it just seems he got everyone yelling about the movie, got the public buzz going, and then . . . made a movie. Sounds not horrible from what I’ve heard, too.
One YouTube reviewer liked the third act, but argues that in much of the film the scenes are too rushed and don’t give the viewer a chance to connect with the characters and the story. I have a hunch that a large plurality will view the film similarly.
One reason for mass quantities of cynicism is that much more often than not affirmative action casting is an accurate predictor of dreck. The Ghostbusters reboot is a golden example. The film tossed pacing and chemistry into a wood chipper for the sake of a gimmick.
This generated a meme for which Twitter is the champion and always will be: ‘there’s just two tiny turds in the punchbowl, why don’t you want a glass?
I did see it on Monday, and it was a great spectacle, but left me cold – ‘Troy’ had better characters you could root for, in my opinion.
Elon appears to be willing to fund an historically correct version.
If Batman can be re-imagined, why not Odysseus?
😉
This reminds me of a bit of waggery that iirc i found in The Economist, decades ago: the hypothesis that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not written by Homer, but by another blind poet with the same name.
@Myno
Elon appears to be willing to fund an historically correct version.
I hardly think Mel Gibson is the guy to do “historically accurate” given Braveheart and “the Patriot” (and controversially “The Passion of the Christ” which was often more a paean to Catholic mythology than the actual Bible story.)
But I commented with a link about an independent person who appears to be creating a version with Grok Imagine and has committed to finishing by the end of the year. That would surely be interesting. It is one of the important things about AI is that it greatly reduces the cost of producing stuff and so makes much broader competition possible. When you can produce a competitor to this $200 million Hollywood movie for $10,000 in your basement of the same visual quality, you can expect some pretty dramatic changes in the entertainment business.
@JuliaM
‘Troy’ had better characters you could root for, in my opinion.
Yeah, plus it had Diane Kruger. She’d get my ships sailing for sure. I think for the new gal, my ships are probably going to stay in the harbor, and I’ll hang out at the harbor bar with my friends and some beer instead.
Of course if we are worried about historical accuracy the actual Helen of Troy, if she existed, would certainly not be a blonde, light skinned German. But there are some places I’m happy to let the historical accuracy slip a little.
Concerning (sort of) the casting choices vis-à-vis the historical appearance of Bronze Age Greeks (a.k.a., Achaeans, Danaans, Argives). These early Greeks had their fair share of fair-haired and red-haired men and women: see, e.g., the Atreides brothers, Agamemnon and Menelaus, i.e., “red-haired Menelaus.” As for Achilles, Google AI correctly informs us that “In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles is traditionally described as having blonde or fair hair. However, the ancient Greek word used to describe his hair is ‘xanthós’, which was a broad term. It encompassed a range of lighter hair colors, including golden blonde, light brown, or tawny, and scholars debate whether it actually implied a reddish or ginger hue.”
Further: “Achilles used the alias Pyrrha (meaning “flame-colored” or “red-haired”) when hiding among women. Furthermore, his son was named Pyrrhus.”
The term xanthós is also used for Helen. IOW, the woman with the face that launched a thousand ships was a blond.
Diane Kruger, it turns out, was a splendid choice for the role (in the movies “Troy”; as was Brad Pitt as Achilles.)
This was, historically, long before 400 years of Turkish occupation of Greece resulted in a native Greek population that, to a large extent, looked as Turkish as any Turk.
The 1954 movie “Ulysses” staring Kirk Douglas as the titular character was, still is, pretty good. It holds up.
. . . “The Passion of the Christ” which was often more a paean to Catholic mythology than the actual Bible story.)
You say that like it’s a bad thing. And: “Catholic mythology”? Careful, now — take caution with your words, atheos. 🙂
@IrishOtter49
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
I’m not saying it is bad or good, I am just saying it is not a marker for historical accuracy.
And: “Catholic mythology”? Careful, now — take caution with your words, atheos. 🙂
You say that like it’s a bad thing 😉.
I don’t think this man was impressed by the Odyssey film and it’s hype.
https://youtu.be/7i8QScdhZzo?si=8IPtap7dHgipbHYe
I’m not saying it is bad or good, I am just saying it is not a marker for historical accuracy.
I didn’t say you were saying it is bad or good. Embrace the meaning of “like.”
I seem to remember a study showing that modern-Turkish genomes are much closer to those of pre-Turkish Anatolia than to those of central-Asian Turks.
But yes, Achilles and Helen are described as fair-haired by Homer… living centuries later.
And Pitt and Kruger were good casting choices in Troy.
The movie, however, did more violence to the Homeric myth than i expect to see was done by Nolan.
It was a re-imagining, which is legitimate; but not a re-imagining that i like.
Great fight scene between Hector and Achilles, though.
So much better than in the Iliad, there is no comparison.
@Quoting myself
Yeah, plus it had Diane Kruger. She’d get my ships sailing for sure.
I’m wondering if this statement is the pre-industrial equivalent of “She gets my motor running for sure”?
But yes, Achilles and Helen are described as fair-haired by Homer… living centuries later.
… and working in a venerable oral tradition extending back to Mycenaean times.
Surely you aren’t implying that Homer invented “red-haired” Menelaus and a fair-haired Helen? Because, perhaps, he had a thing for gingers and blonds?
I agree that the depiction in “Troy” of the duel between Achilles and Hektor was well done. The use of spears not swords as the primary close-quarters combat weapon, and the way they handled them, was accurate.
Also accurate in “Troy” was the depiction of the Trojan phalanx, with the phalankes holding tower shields unique to Aegean Bronze Age warfare, pushing forward against the Achaeans step by deliberate step.
I seem to remember a study showing that modern-Turkish genomes are much closer to those of pre-Turkish Anatolia than to those of central-Asian Turks.
I don’t doubt that such a study was made, but whether its stated findings are valid must be open to question. I find it hard to believe that central-Asian Turkish ancestry is not predominant among modern Turks.
In the event, if modern Turkish genomes are closer to the pre-Turkish inhabitants of Anatolia, just who are the people we are talking about here? Indo-European Hittites? Non-Indo-European Kaska? Indo-European Luwians?
Mr Nolan’s agitprop work “Oppenheimer” is said to be well made (I have not seen it) – presenting a supporter of Marxist regimes that murdered millions of people as if he was a “victim” and getting the audience to feel sympathy for him.
From the choice of which translation of the Odyssey Mr Nolan picked to follow (a translation by a leftist) his intent was obvious – another agitprop production.
As for the marketing – it seems to be effective, for example someone at the art shop (the one I sometimes look after) suggested that we should go and see it – “we should go to see the Odyssey” why? “because, because…. because everyone is going to see it”.
It was like something out of the 1965 Michael Caine film “The Ipcress File” – marketing is the wrong world, “conditioning” or (at the risk of being a bit vulgar) “brain washing” would be closer to what is happening.
By the way – in case anyone comes out with the “Oppenheimer did not know” defense – of course he knew, no one active in Communist Party circles could be ignorant of what the Party was all about.
My father (Harry Marks) left school at 14, and he knew exactly what was going in the Soviet Union in the 1930s – and he knew that the Communist Party would do the same thing in Britain, the United States and other nations – if it took power, for exterminating reactionaries, and class enemies (regardless of their opinions) is inherent in Marxist doctrine.
One of the first thing the New Dealers did in the United States in 1933 was try and destroy the files of the old Russian Section of the State Department – so they could pretend (pretend) they “did not know” if ever asked why they established diplomatic relations with the regime – inviting in its agents (“diplomats”) for the purpose of aiding in the subversion of the United States. Mrs Roosevelt and the rest of the them were as guilty as Hell.
As for Oppenheimer – he did not even play the Bertrand Russell or J.M. Keynes game (pretending to deplore totalitarianism – whilst accepting its arguments as truth), Oppenheimer (like so many of his associates) was active in Communist Party meetings – going to meetings and all the rest of it.
Well… there was plenty of time, between the actual event and Homer’s retelling, for people who had a thing for gingers and blonds to make up things.
(Incidentally, Homer could not have a thing for fair hair, since/if he was blind.)
In addition to the duel between Achilles and Hector, another thing that i liked about Troy was that Agamemnon provided a realpolitik rationalization for the war: Troy controlled access to the Black Sea; it was in the interest of the Greeks to conquer it.
In this retelling, strategic interests launched 1K ships: the face was just a pretext.
— BTW: yes, Diane Kruger was easy on the eyes in Troy (it seems that she filled up a bit for the role).
But Lupita seems to have a pretty face too; although i admit that the color is not one that i have gotten used to. Early experience has an important role.
I have been procrastinating about this, because i expect outrage.
I think that both the Iliad and the Odyssey are very much worth reading, for their historical relevance.
But i do not think that they are great literature on the level of the Sagas of Icelanders; or even of Moby Dick, or The Godfather. (I could go on, but i won’t.)
Within classical narrative, i prefer the historians: Herodotos, Thukydides, and Tacitus, to Homer. (Disclaimer: i did not read all the output of said historians.)
The Aeneid sits on my bedside table, but i have not yet got around to reading it.
Do yourself a favour and read Xenophon’s Anabasis
You need a better translation then. Although if you think The Godfather is great literature…..
Exactly how I felt about Oppenheimer and why I will not go see this one. Ever since Nolan’s little brother stopped writing the screenplays, his movies went downhill (with the exception of Dunkirk).
Years and years ago, I rented the PBS dramatization of Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. My wife and I watched about half of the first episode and stopped. It wasn’t the only thing that bothered us, but part of our dislike was seeing Ged played by a blond actor, when we both knew that Le Guin had made it plain that most of the people of Earthsea, including Ged, were light or dark brown; only one outlying archipelago of barbarians was white.
Alisa – yes indeed, and good point about the writer of the screenplays.
IrishOtter49 – Alexander the Great was also blond, but this was rare enough to be remarked upon – as it was with Sulla in Rome a few centuries later (Sulla stood out in a crowd partly because he was blond – and few Romans were). Muhammed stood out in a crowd of Arabs because he was pale (pale by Arab standards).
If Homer says that someone was blond or red haired – that is indeed because the folk tradition says they were, and the folk tradition was probably correct. Even the Egyptians were a bit paler in the past (and hair colours were a bit more diverse – with some red heads), although many black African slaves were castrated, and babies born to black African mothers were often killed (the normal Ottoman practice was to smash their heads of such babies against a wall – this was common among Arabs as well, but NOT universal), there was (over more than a thousand years of Islamic slave trading from the interior of Africa) enough sub-saharan African DNA getting into modern the Egyptian population to change their appearance a bit. President Sadat was rather sensitive about this – and hated being portrayed by a black actor on American television shows.
As for Greek and Turkish DNA – there is little Central Asian DNA in the Greeks, but there is quite a lot of Greek DNA in the modern Turks.
Over the centuries a lot of people in Anatolia (Greek and pre Greek) converted to Islam – to avoid the infidel tax, and to avoid the risk of having their male children taken for the Ottoman Army and the risk of their daughters being taken as sex slaves.
The propaganda for “Odyssey” is almost universal – front cover of last week’s Radio Times (even though the film has nothing to do with the BBC), “get arms like Matt Damon” (dressed up in the stupid costume) in the supposedly conservative Telegraph newspaper, and on and on.
It is political – the international establishment have decided this film will be a commercial success, because they agree with its political-cultural agenda – smash the patriarchy (the pretend male character played by a mutilated women, and the speeches by the actress playing Penelope – how she should be King of Ithaca, but men will not allow it), the Diversity stuff (for example the line “we are Greeks from Ithaca” line is delivered by an actor who is clearly not European), and the anti war message.
Here is a pro-Nolan take from Rich Lowry.
But you have to understand that what i like in it, is not that it is pro-Nolan (since i have not yet seen the movie), but that it helps me to explain why i am mildly anti-Homer.
The relevant quote:
The raid on the Cicones is of special interest to me.
Reading that Odysseus started his voyage back with a Viking-style raid;
after which he kept complaining about people not respecting the laws of hospitality;
until he ended up slaughtering his wife’s guests for abusing the laws of hospitality;
made me lose the little sympathy for Odysseus that i had after reading about his night-time raid in the Iliad.
Alexander the Great was also blond, but this was rare enough to be remarked upon
“Remarked upon” in the sense that it was considered extraordinary and thus merited special mention, or in that sense that it was simply noticed as a biographical data point?
It is useful to note in this regard that Thracians, next door neighbors of the Macedonians, were famously ginger-haired.
Ancient Egyptians had relatively light skin unless one spent a lot of time in the sun (which most did, being as they were agricultural peasants) and burned virtually “black” or “Mediterranean dark brown” by their exposure. Which is why Egyptian noble women were at pains to avoid the sun and used skin-lightening cosmetics so as to ensure that the relatively pale complexions they were born with remained so through adulthood.
The Egyptians were quite firm on this. You can see that in their art, in which they — even workers and farm hands — are depicted with “reddish” or pale complexions. Sub-Saharan peoples are depicted as black, and “Asiatics” are depicted as having curly hair and beards and hooked noses.
Snorri Godhi:
Well, he was a complex man. And, withal, very much a man of his times.
As were the people in Homer’s original audience.
Which is exactly why my Classicist friend gave Nolan’s Odyssey the thumbs down. He prefers his classics red in tooth & claw, seeking a mythic window into the harsh alien Mycenaean world
Which is why i prefer Viking mythology to Greek mythology; and very much prefer the Sagas of Icelanders to Homer.
And, incidentally, it is also why i prefer Game of Thrones to The Lord of the Rings. Although i got involved in Tolkien much more than in Homer.
To the list of points against Odysseus listed above, i’d like to add a couple of points against 2 Iliad characters.
Agamemnon: his explicit call for genocide. (Although, if i was stuck holding a siege for a decade, i might call for genocide too.)
Achilles: his performing human sacrifice in honor of Patroclus.
I note that the Athenians also performed human sacrifice, before the battle of Salamis.
IrishOtter49 – you make a series of valid points in your comment.
And, to answer your question directly, it was not considered freakish for Alexander to have blond hair – it was unusual, but there were other blondes about. It was the same with Sulla centuries later in Rome – he might be the only blond in, say, a small dinner party – but there were certainly other blondes about in the city, and always had been.
I am told that the closest group of people, genetically, to the Ancient Egyptians are the modern Sardinians – also a non Indo-European people – i.e. their DNA is just-about what the DNA of people in Europe was BEFORE the arrival of the Indo-Europeans thousands of years ago.
Sardinians are not black – sorry BBC.
When the Spanish first went to the Canary Islands they found, by all their accounts (and they had no reason to lie), a tall people with pale skin (even though the Canary Islands are off the coast of Africa – although some way to the west) and often light coloured hair and eyes – genetically these people (as we can find from their remains) are just-about what people were in Europe were just after the last Ice Age – so the international establishment may be lying with their claims that Europe was inhabited by black people.
By the way, the Spanish did not commit genocide in the Canary Islands – although there was warfare and disease (disease being the big killer) – there was intermarriage.
As for Hollywood – fair enough cast Chris Pratt as Nelson Mandela, and Sydney Sweeney as Harriet Tubman.
No? Not acceptable? O.K. – then leave the Odyssey alone.
No race swapping, no feminist “I should be King” agenda (and no that is not “Christian”), and certainly no mutilated women playing warrior men.
Yes, at least Virgil had the decency to rename his hero and his epic.
Paul Marks:
Totally agree. Couldn’t agree with you more.
It’s my understanding that Christian Copts are, genetically, descendants of the ancient Egyptians. Have you heard or read anything in this regard?
Perry de Havilland:
I’m with your friend, and presumably you, on how the Mycenaean world should be viewed, understood, and portrayed.
Full disclosure: I have written/published numerous works about that world. Currently working on a novel based on a nonfiction article I wrote about the superpower rivalry between Ahhiyawa (i.e., the Mycenaean realm) and the Hittites.
A fascinating subject. The true history of the Aegean/Near Eastern Bronze is far and away more in interesting and exciting than the made-up stuff (e.g., Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Conan, etc. etc.). This has become my guiding principle as a writer of both history and fiction.
Concerning the ancient Egyptians, it is interesting to note how they depicted Hittite chariot warriors in the many friezes and associated visual representations they made depicting the Battle of Kadesh. The Hittites were, of course, Indo-Europeans (as were the Mycenaean peoples (Ekwesh in the language of Kem, IOW Achaeans) and the superstrat of Mittanian society. The best they could do in terms of visual representation was to accurately portray the Hittite hair style, which must have struck the Egyptians as being rather outlandish.
I seem to remember that the Sardinians are more closely related to the Phoenicians than to the Egyptians. Which would make sense.
IIRC other European groups with large genetic distances from us boringly close to the European median, are the Basques, the Greeks, the Yugoslavs, the Estonians, the Finns, the Lapps, and the Icelanders.
The genetic distance of the Icelanders is presumably due to the large genetic drift in a small population, rather than to a large non-European genetic contribution.
Well… the mutilated woman was not playing a warrior man, (s)he was playing a DEAD warrior man.
Dead warriors are not very athletic.
That is why i rate Thukydides, Tacitus, and the Sagas of Icelanders (and the Secret History of the Mongols, and the 47 Ronin) higher than Homer, the Arthurian cycle, and Lord of the Rings.
But once you read “true” history, and come to understand that people respond to incentives, you learn to appreciate fictional stories in which fictional characters do respond to incentives.
Such as Macbeth, The Godfather, Game of Thrones, and the Red Sparrow trilogy.
Conan is a different issue. The Milius movie is, in my arrogant opinion, by far the best swords+sandals movie ever made. Because a movie must tell a simple story.
The Godfather movie is not a great movie (in my arrogant opinion) because it tells a complicated story, which cannot be told in a movie.
Wait. Snorri Godhi – the characters in LOTR don’t respond to incentives? Am I reading that correctly?
Snorri – it was still utterly absurd casting, and done to appease the “Woke” Critical Theory Marxism of Hollywood (so much for it being a “Christian” film).
As for people responding to incentives – people make choices and sometimes they give in to temptation. Sometimes when temptation overpowers their moral reason they later repent – as Boromir does in the Lord of the Rings, even Denethor almost repents – but then he does not, his death is tragic precisely because he dies unrepentant. Smeagol-Gollum also almost repents – but then does not (perhaps because Sam, without really meaning to be, is abusive towards him – at the key moment when Smeagol-Gollum might have repented).
We all die – human life is a process of physical and mental decay ending in death, but what matters is how we live and die – do we live and die trying to achieve something good, or do we give in to the evil that is within all of us. But even if the evil wins – we can come back, we can make up for what we have done – as Boromir does.
His death, the manner of his death, saved him.
The agitprop campaign continues – today it was the Times that was pushing the “Odyssey workout” – owned by a different company to the (supposedly conservative) Telegraph – but pushing the same themes, intended to get people to go and watch the Nolan film.
The process was described more than 80 years ago – by Ayn Rand in “The Fountainhead” – leftists (including leftists in supposedly conservative newspapers) drop references to leftist books, plays or films (later television shows) that they want people to read or watch – and they drop these references into articles or features (or whatever) that have no real connection to the book, play, film (or whatever) – it is calculated, to try and create a “cultural event” for the purpose of pushing a leftist cultural agenda.
Yes it is easier for them to do if the film (if it is a film) is well made – but they will do it regardless of whether the film is well made or not.
After all, contra Hayek, a culture is just the ideas of people and what they choose to do – all cultures are created by human beings (and human beings with an agenda) they do NOT “just evolve”. Although, yes, various things become a habit over time – over generations.
If a population forgets the reasons WHY they do certain things and believe certain things, if it becomes “this is just what we do round here” and “this is what we happen to believe” – then they are vulnerable, very vulnerable, to subversion.
Each generation needs to understand the reasons WHY they do what they do and believe what they believe – as Ronald Reagan often said “liberty is always only one generation away from being lost” – if a generation grows up not knowing WHY men do certain things in society and women do other things, and what a man and a woman should be, and WHY government should be limited – then all is lost.
Aristotle did not respond to the radicalism (both economic and social radicalism) of Plato by saying “this is just what we do round here” (relying on “social evolution” or some such stuff) – no, Aristotle explained (as best he could – no one is perfect) WHY Plato was wrong, both wrong in his political Collectivism and wrong in his social radicalism (his denial of the different roles of men and women – and so on).
On Boromir and the other – it does not depend on Tolkien’s Christian faith.
For example, both Marcus Aurelius and Ayn Rand, neither of whom believed in life after death, would agree with that how Boromir chooses to die (benevolence is not “self sacrifice” – it is honouring the better part of one’self even if it leads to death), and his sincere repentance, redeems him – he is himself again, the better part of himself.
The tragedy of both Denethor and Smeagol-Gollum is that the better part of themselves loses the struggle – they betray themselves.
Aristotle would have understood the inner struggle – and the tragedy it is when a person loses that struggle.
As for death itself – Arwen sums it up, as Aragorn is preparing for his death.
Only now do I understand the story of your people and their fall, as wicked fools I scorned them – but now I pity them, for if this is, as the Eldar say, the gift of The One to men – it is bitter to receive.
Arwen is herself, by her own choice, now also doomed to die.
Bobby: no, clearly the characters in LOTR respond to incentives. Perhaps i put too much emphasis on incentives. What is different about “real” history, as distinct from LotR, is that there is not a sharp contrast between a good side and an evil side. But LotR is still a great story, and it makes one think about moral choices, as Perry and Paul have pointed out, here and elsewhere.
But, just to be clear, whether one chooses good or evil, one is still responding to incentives; just to different incentives.
Take Achilles, by contrast: when he refuses to fight, he does not consider the fact that his refusal could get Patroclus killed. I do not see his refusal as a choice, more like an instinctive reaction.
There are often is a contrast between the good and evil side – although, yes, the good side may do terrible things in a good cause (such as the bombing of German and Japanese cities during World War II – it may have been justified, and, at least in the case of the Japanese cities, vast numbers of leaflets were dropped by the United States Army Air Force warning civilians to leave the cities,- but it was still terrible for the people in Dresden, Tokyo and so on).
It is possible to have a good cause – and still do, indeed still have to do, bad things. In the Lord of the Rings, Sam looks at the body of dead Southron (unlike the Peter Jackson films – in the actual story Sauron wants to be the Lord of Men NOT the Lord of Orcs, and most of his armies, in Tolkien’s real writings, are made up of men) and wonders if the man was truly evil – or whether he was fighting for what he (mistakenly) thought were good reasons.
But what if it went a stage further and, for example, to destroy enemy supplies it had been necessary to burn the villages and towns of the Southrons and Eastlings, killing the women and children in these villages and towns?
Even a food blockade (standard procedure in war) targets women and children – as the enemy soldiers will get priority for food.
The Ancient Greeks were very much aware of these matters – for example Odysseus (in the Illad) does not want to go to war, he even pretends to be insane to try and get out of it – but his ruse is discovered. He is pretending to plow a field (pretending to not understand what is going on around him – just obsessively plowing) – so the men who had come to get him for the military effort, put his baby son in front of his plow – and he stops, rather than cutting his baby son in half (thus proving that he is aware of what is going on around him – that he has been shamming).
And in the play “The Trojan Women” (and other plays) Greek writers showed that they understood that the people on the other side in war were still people – and mostly not guilty of any crime.
The male children are killed – not for any crime they have committed (they have committed no crime), but because, if they are allowed to live, they will take revenge for the killing of their fathers.
And the women and girls are enslaved – in spite of having committed no crime.
The ancients knew that slavery was against natural justice – but nearly all of them made excuses for slavery, even whilst knowing it was unjust (such as “it is the law of all nations” – i.e. everyone else does this evil thing, so I can do this evil thing).
Only a handful of writers (at least only a handful of writers whose writings survive – most of the writings of the ancient world are lost) refused to make excuses for slavery and denounced it.
The agitprop campaign continues – for example today the Sunday Times put the Nolan film on the front page (as if it was a news story – rather than a film), there it was on the front page – with other stories such as the normal (normal for the media) story that Jews are baby killers.
My understanding was that Odysseus did not want to go to war for selfish reasons: because he did not want to risk his life — or being stuck for decades away from home, as he ended up being.
That is why i think that Chinggis Khan has been vastly under-rated: his Standard Operating Procedure, at least within the steppes, was to kill all the adult men, but to assimilate all women and children, of either sex.
But let’s be clear: in this respect, the Mongols appear to be morally superior to Mycenaeans — but not necessarily to classical-age Greeks.
Interesting points Snorri.
Although the Mongols operated on a much larger scale – indeed they have reduced the population of the Earth by almost a tenth (the modern international establishment would be delighted – but would prefer it was nine tenths).
The Great Khan believed incorporating other Mongols into his tribe – other races of people, not-so-much. Although he was keen on women of all peoples – he is said to have fathered more children than any other man.
Matt Damon is famous, or rather infamous, for being a bone-headed leftist – which makes his being pushed by the Telegraph newspaper (and so on) even more odd – unless one understands that the cultural coverage of even supposedly conservative media outlets is controlled by leftist writers.
But it is not just Matt Damon or the (sadly mentally troubled) Ellen Page, it is also Anne Hatheway, as Gadd Saad pointed out in a YouTube film (“Anne Hatheway is a degenerate narcissist”) a few minutes ago, Anne Hatheway pushes the same Critical Theory Marxist drivel about “cis gender” and “whiteness” – and how “her community” is going to destroy the West. It is all quite open – the speeches are in public.
For Mr Nolan to cast these people in key roles is an indication of what he-himself is – and his own recent interviews (where he attacks “men”, meaning Western men – people like himself, and so on) confirms it.
Hollywood is toxic – it is poison. It has totally accepted the very worst ideas pushed by the degenerate education system – ideas that even “Stalin” thought were too extreme (because, as a Classical Marxist, he wanted to rule society – not utterly DESTROY society, which is what the degenerate Frankfurt School interpretation of Marxism is about).
And this film is a product of that Hollywood mindset.
And it is revealing, very revealing, that the international media, including supposedly conservative parts of it – such as the Telegraph, are pushing the film.