Name better heroes than Heracles and Odysseus (can be from other mythologies). You can't

This, he killed more Trojans than Achilles (kills written in book) and wounded two gods, and he wasn't even half god like most heroes.

This.

Achilles was an arrogant prick who let his friends die to the Trojans because Agememnon took his captive, he was no hero

Not him, but he is literally the only person in the entirety of Greek heroic literature who actually manages to swallow his pride, and let other people have their day even though he's the most able person around in the Trojan war.

You don't see his heroics in the rampage and slaughtering of Trojans and the defeat of Hektor, you see it when he lets Agammemnon cheat in the funeral games and gives the body back to Priam, after the latter says just about the most offensive thing possible to him.

No, he wasn't a hero at the start, and that's the point. The Iliad is a story about a conflict between Achilles and Agammemnon, and how that conflict makes Achilles a modern hero instead of just a skilled thug with a spear.

Reminder that Heracles is a ripoff

>The Labours of Heracles form a cycle like the victories of Ninurta. Ninurta is a vigorous champion, a son of the chief god Enlil. An Akkadian text (KAR 76.9) calls him aplu dannu ša Enlil, ‘the strong son of Enlil’, paralleling the formula used of Heracles, ‘the doughty son of Zeus’ (Dios alkimos hyios). In a series of Sumerian texts, starting with the Cylinders of Gudea in the 22nd century and continuing with other Ninurta texts in Sumerian and Akkadian, there are references to a series of monsters, each one different, which Ninurta has killed or captured in separate combats and brought back to his city as trophies.

>Among the creatures killed by Ninurta one can certainly recognize some analogies with the objects of Heracles’ Labours. The seven-headed serpent is the most unmistakable. There is also a terrible lion, corresponding to the Nemean Lion; a ‘buck’, which can be a stag or ram, and which might be matched up with the Cerynean Hind; the storm-bird Anzu, which could at a pinch be put beside the Stymphalian Birds; a crab that is trampled underfoot in a pool, recalling the crab that assists the Hydra against Heracles; and a ‘bison’, pictured as a bull-man, which is slain ‘in the middle of the sea’ and might be compared to the Cretan Bull. The captured bulls and cows that Ninurta adds to his dead trophies in Angim and brings back to Nippur may be put beside the cattle of Geryon. The connection with Heracles is strengthened by the fact that in most cases the Greek hero takes the object of his quest back to Eurystheus at Tiryns, as Ninurta takes all of his trophies back to Nippur.

you have 10 seconds to explain to me how the myths about Heracles and what not are any different than the stories of Batman, Superman ect

Oedipus.

This. Don't get me wrong Odysseus is the man I wish I was, Slaying goddess puss and beating those faggy Cyclopes at their own games but Gilgamesh's epic is like the epic of what means to be human, How to rule as a man, and struggling with death as a mortal.

>Because the people who listened to them believed they happened
>Because the reveal something about the society's that created them
>Because they teach us what the cultures of the past viewed as good attributes or virtues

They have a conclusion.

How do you wound gods and get away with it?

Cú Chulainn
the most powerful Paddy

ancient greek heroes = characters with motivations and goals, rebelling against the divine because of this
superheroes = hurr lets beat people up because they did something bad and killed my daddy, literal mary sue powers.

Hercules, Cú Chulainn, Rostam, and others are all pretty similar and likely descend from the same ind-european story.

What about Heracles and his superpower to hold the heavens on his shoulders?

>hurr lets beat people up because they did something bad
That's kind of what Theseus did to those bandits on his journey to Athens

Karna

Heracles is still subjected to the will of the gods. Hera drove him mad, and thus indirectly the murderer of Heracle's wife and children, but it is Heracles who has to suffer the consequences

good post

Hercules was cool, but forcing him into Golden Fleece arc felt like pandering

Ares was a fucking jobber

I don't recall any of them single-handedly fucking up everyone on Mt. Olympus.

Ancient heroes
>warriors
>kangz
>semi-divine
>embodiments of virtue
>three dimensional
>once they defeat a foe they die and fuck off

Super "heroes"
>shallow
>anti-killing to the point of retardation
>literally meant for kids
>asspulls

There's a deeper meaning to that. Achilles was giving up his life for glory in battle. Agamemnon taking his captive was akin to him taking his glory, and rendering his life for nothing.

They're from a different cultural context and driven by a different set of values. They also serve a different purpose in their creation.

I'd imagine after a thousand or so years, our superheroes will be viewed in a similar light to mythological heroes (assuming Disney doesn't just keep rewriting copyright laws infinitely).

Kullervo
Väinämöinen
Lemminkäinen

Cú Chulainn's not that similar 2bh. Óghma is the most similar in Irish mythology I think.

Akkadians were Semites, Not indoeuropean

Not him, but I would argue that the angle is slightly different. It's less that Achilles is going to die for glory in battle, and Agammemnon is taking his spoils and thus his glory.

It's more that Achilles is The Best. Everyone knows it. But due to his position as king of Mycenae, Agammemnon is in overall charge, and it's about how Achilles resents a set of social strictures that puts an inferior man above him and subjects himself to this guy's whims that sparks off the conflict. If Achilles hadn't been fated to die, I still can't see him taking Agammemnon's interference in good faith like this.

You'll note that at the climax/coda, during Patrokles's funeral games, he manages to let go, letting Agammemnon win the javelin throw even though Achilles could easily enter and beat his best toss, as well as overlooking substantial cheating in almost every event by the ranking warlords.

Neither is Rostam who could also be easily compared with european medieval heroic knights. His "good warrior being loyal to incompetent king" theme always reminded me to the Cid who shares it (although it's a bit less central in Rostam). all those heros he mentioned got their own individual character, like it's obvious since so much time and geographical distance separates them.

Carefully.

Which usually means you have the sponsorship of a rival god or goddess and for all intents and purposes you might as well be his or her instrument.

It's not rebelling against the gods, it's an open war and there are gods on both sides.

There's that too. I think the nature of it's multifaceted. Homer's characters are pretty complicated sorts.

Diomedes is GOAT.

Arjuna
Esfandiyar
Rostam
Lancelot
Galahad
Sieg
Siegfried
Sigurd
Son Gokuu

beowulf

Arr-Maito and his apprentice Thegu

This
But let's be real Bhima was the true hero of the Kurukshetra War

Jason.

The stories are authored by cultures rather than individuals, and the literature (tragedies, epic poems) is superior to comic books.

Greek heroes are not goody two shoes american comic book superheroes. Plenty of them are selfish, prideful, prone to violent sperg outs being a hero in greek mythology is simply being mightier than others but not ugly enough to be categorized as a monster.

No one aside from village retards believed the myths were real.

That eagle-lion looks pretty fucking cool. Certainly better than those faggy griffons from most fantasy settings.

Digenis Akritas
>The second part of the work relates the development of the young hero and his superhuman feats of bravery and strength. As a boy, he goes hunting with his father and kills two bears unarmed, strangling the first to death and breaking the second one's spine. He also tears a hind in half with his bare hands, and slays a lion in the same manner. Like his father, he carries off the daughter of another Byzantine general and then marries her; he kills a dragon; he takes on the so-called apelatai (ἀπελάται), a group of bandits, and then defeats their three leaders in single combat. No one, not even the amazingly strong female warrior Maximu, with whom he commits the sin of adultery, can match him. Having defeated all his enemies Digenes builds a luxurious palace by the Euphrates, where he ends his days peacefully. Cypriot legend has it that he grabbed hold of the Pentadaktylos ("Five Fingers") mountain range north of Nicosia in order to leap to Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). The mountain range, as the name suggests, resembles five knuckles sprouting from the ground.

>gonna leave my fucking kingdom and risk my life to find dat pussy xD

he was a blue pilled tard

...

This guy gets it.

Where can I read the Epic of Gilgamesh?

>Karna

Thread literally should have ended here.

I see your Cu Chulain, and raise you a Fionn Mac Cumhail.

>Galahad
Literally made to be perfect, his heroism doesn't count because he didn't really have much of a choice in the matter. Lancelot was always the better knight because he eventually atoned for his mistakes.

I think the real heroics happen when Achilles agrees to give over Hektor's body so that it may have a funeral. Beneath all of the tough guy business of the Iliad, mercy and humility is ultimately treated as the ultimate virtues.

At least personally, I've thought that the giving the body back was a demonstration of the realization he had post Patrokles's death, his hollow revenge, and realizing that for all of his personal prowess, he can't do everything, so there might be something to this society notion.

It's the application of the lesson learned earlier. That being said, it's one of the greatest scenes in the entire work, as Priam says just about the worst thing possible to Achilles, who has (along with his father) already counted that cost and paid it.

It's not so much mercy as it is humility. The man who was a law unto himself, was strong enough to actually BE a law unto himself, deciding that striving for every advantage just isn't worth it.

Zhuge Liang

Fionn Mc Cumhaill was based too but he can't top CC's heroic death

prometheus

Finn mcCool and CuChulain

Why did Priam let Paris steal Menelaus' wife? Did he have no fucking idea that would backfire?

Exactly, and it's amazing about how we still talk about this all today. How universal all of these myths are.

Guys earlier in the thread were getting angry about the comparison to super heroes, and I understand, but I feel like in a way a lot of the comic book heroes are sort of a new manifestation of some of the archetypes that we see in old epic poems and what not. They're definitely more watered down, and it takes awhile to get works using them to raise the same questions and discussions like the Iliad does, but I'm sure that some of the myths and retellings we do not have today of the heroes are just as hokey as some of the comics are.

Take for instance with Siegfried and Das Nibelungenlied, for a long while you had the story preserved and constantly reprinted with an odd "Horny Skinned Siegfried" tale that was obviously way more meant for children than for adults, hardly touching on the same ideas of the cycle of violence, the peculiarities of rank in medieval society, and what it means to be a hero on the same way that the Nibelungenlied did.

Samurai Jack. Ashley J Williams.

He wasn't counting on one man carrying the whole Greek army on his back

At least A version of the myths presents it as revenge for some of the fallout of Heracles's sacking of the city, which killed all of Priam's brothers and his father, as well as Telamon (Ajax and Teucer's father) abducting Hesione.

>That son of Tydeus meanwhile, with pitiless spear, was chasing after Cyprian Aphrodite, knowing she was a gentle goddess, not one of those who control the flow of battle, no Athene, or Enyo, sacker of cities. So, when he reached her after his chase through the ranks, fierce Diomedes lunged at her with his sharp spear, piercing the divine robe the Graces had laboured to make for her, and wounding the flesh of her wrist near the palm. Out streamed the deathless goddess’ blood, the ichor that flows in ambrosial veins, for the gods do not eat mortal bread or drink mortal wine, but lacking our blood are called immortals. With a piercing cry she let fall her son, whom Phoebus Apollo clasped in his arms, wrapped in a dark blue cloud, lest a bronze spear hurled from a swift Danaan chariot might pierce his breast and end his life.
>Over her Diomedes of the loud war-cry raised a great shout of triumph: ‘Daughter of Zeus, leave battle and strife to others. Isn’t it enough that you snare feeble women? Rejoin the fight and you’ll learn to shudder at the name of war!’

>But the moment Ares, bane of the living, glimpsed Diomedes, he left vast Periphas where he had killed him, and headed straight for the horse-tamer. When they were at close quarters, Ares thrust with his bronze spear over the reins and yoke, at Diomedes, eager to strike him dead: but bright-eyed Athene caught the spear in her hand, and drove it above the chariot to spend its force in the air. Now, Diomedes, of the loud war-cry, drove his bronze-spear at Ares, and Pallas Athene drove it home into the lower belly, where he wore a defensive apron. There the thrust landed, tearing the flesh, and Diomedes wrenched it free again. Then brazen Ares bellowed as loud as ten thousand warriors shout in battle, when they meet in the war-god’s shadow. The Greeks and Trojans trembled with fear at insatiable Ares’ cry.

With balls of steel, divine help and a sharp, pitiless spear

...

Wtf happened to his eyes and hand

Not an expert, but Aeneas was pretty cool I guess.

His hand was eaten by the fenris wolf

The Norse pseudo-god Loki, who is by turns the friend and the enemy of the other gods, had three fearfully hideous and strong children with the giantess Angrboda (“She Who Bodes Anguish”). The first was the serpent Jormungand, and the second was the death-goddess Hel. The third was the wolf Fenrir.

The gods had terrible forebodings concerning the destiny of these three beings. And they were absolutely correct. Jormungand would later kill the god Thor during Ragnarok, the end of the great mythical cycle, an event which would be largely brought about by Hel’s refusal to release the radiant god Baldur from the underworld. During these cataclysmic events, Fenrir would devour Odin, the chief of the gods.

In order to keep these monsters at bay, they threw Jomungand into the ocean, where he encircled Midgard, the world of humankind. Hel they relegated to the underworld. Fenrir, however, inspired too much fear in them for them to let him out from under their watchful eyes, so they reared the pup themselves in their stronghold, Asgard. Only Tyr, the indefatigable upholder of law and honor, dared to approach Fenrir to feed him.

Fenrir grew at an alarming rate, however, and soon the gods decided that his stay in Asgard had to be temporary. Knowing well how much devastation he would cause if he were allowed to roam free, the gods attempted to bind him with various chains. They were able to gain the wolf’s consent by telling him that these fetters were tests of his strength, and clapping and cheering when, with each new chain they presented him, he broke free.

...

When the gods presented Fenrir with the curiously light and supple Gleipnir, the wolf suspected trickery and refused to be bound with it unless one of the gods would lay his or her hand in his jaws as a pledge of good faith. None of the gods agreed, knowing that this would mean the loss of a hand and the breaking of an oath. At last, the brave Tyr, for the good of all life, volunteered to fulfill the wolf’s demand. And, sure enough, when Fenrir discovered that he was unable to escape from Gleipnir, he chomped off and swallowed Tyr’s hand.

The fettered beast was then transported to some suitably lonely and desolate place. The chain was tied to a boulder and a sword was placed in the wolf’s jaws to hold them open. As he howled wildly and ceaselessly, a foamy river called “Expectation” (Old Norse Ván) flowed from his drooling mouth. And there, in that sordid state, he remained – until Ragnarok.

...

Didn't he fuck his mom?

Yeah but that happened on his way to Athens, he didn't seek out bad guys to defeat them.

Terribly staid, except when he descends into battle rage. Hard to see him really under the flowery prose. He was so cold to Dido that Virgil had to throw in an underworld scene to explain that he really did have a hardon for her

Muh brave norse people amirite? xD

Sanguinius

online

Weird way to spell Horus.

...

Online senpai or get a penguin classic copy from amazon: amazon.co.uk/Epic-Gilgamesh-Penguin-Classics-ebook/dp/B01ESELZNO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474646169&sr=1-1&keywords=epic of gilgamesh