So lit, who was a better man Achilles or Odysseus?

So lit, who was a better man Achilles or Odysseus?

man in relation to gods: Achilles
man in relation to man: Odysseus

Odysseus

gods don't exist

Odysseus

you coulda just said odysseus and saved some time.
Achilles is a human quality personified while odyssess is man in general.

Hector

why does that matter?
That's an extremely simplistic way to look at Achilles.

Alright actually difficult question: Hector or Odysseus? I'd say Hector because he had a cool tragic ending, knowing he was doomed to lose yet fighting anyway.

basically this.

Diomedes

it's also a simplistic way of looking at Odysses but that's not the point.

Odysseus wasn't gay, so Odysseus.

reducing Achilles to "a human quality personified" is a lot worse than the vague statement of "Odysseus was a guy". At least the second statement allows room for expansion.
Hector makes me so sad. I legitimately get upset thinking about his death.
>yet fighting anyway
He was chased around like a stray dog, murdered and dragged by a chariot.

Diomedes was the biggest surprise when I was reading it. Especially when he broke pious roman guy's femur with a boulder.

Achilles, easy.

achilles is human perfection with a magical weakness. He's exempted from "this is a guy" status.
He's essentially a flat character.

Dude? Athena?
O is the most god-possessed man in the entire Greek host!
>what the fuck am i reading!

>Achilles is a flat character

I've heard people pronounce it "a-kill-ees," and they say its because he killed so much. but i always said "a-chill-ees," because he was chillin in his hut while the war was going on. Which is it?

>being this fucking naive
I'm not even that guy but the character and the story in general is a metaphor you fucking tard. God-possession should not be taken so literally in that context. Achilles is irremovable from his godlike context because its the essential quality of his character.
jesus you greek-starters sure are dumb.

whats your definition of flat then?
you probably don't even get it.
details =/= depth

Ulysses is better than both

You memeing me right now m8? I'm still not engaged with your "criticisms" but keep trying if you want. I'm posting, so that's a step in the right direction I guess.

Ulysses

>Hector makes me so sad. I legitimately get upset thinking about his death.

Yeah, me too. He was a nice, normal guy. I think he was the most human of all the guys in The Iliad. He was fighting for the sake of his family and his people, he wasn't bloodthirsty.

Paris should've just killed himself rather when he was given the apple. Would've saved Hector (and Troy and Helen) a lot of trouble.

Achilles, by virtue of his invulnerability and tragic flaw, is the definitive literature meme.
He is flat as "developed" characters get.

achilles is a manchild, so odysseus

Eh, I wouldn't be so sure user. You're not wrong, but what about up on Olympus when no mortals are present in the scene? I'd say in the epics the gods exist and showcase that free will doesn't necessarily exist. It's more powerful to know that Achilles, though opposed by some gods, overcomes that force.

I love them both, and even when Achilles is being angsty he's okay, but Odysseus is both a better man and more memorable. He's cleverererer and I love how his wife stays in bed all day with her bubs and fucks he-who-shall-not-be-named-blazes but eventually Ody returns and kisses her asshole and lays contorted on the bed with her .

>Paris should've just killed himself rather when he was given the apple.

Moira is a bitch man

Odysseus. Achilles, although the best warrior, was a self-serving cry baby. He refused to fight for the Greeks because of a spat with Agamemnon over some useless woman, and only got back into the fight to avenge his friend who selflessly sacrificed himself. Odysseus was a great fighter, but more than that he was cunning and used his cunning to the advantage of the Greeks. And while Oydsseus had his own motives (as everyone does) he wasn't a mopey cry baby who'd endanger the entire campaign over some petty bullshit like Achilles did.

>entire campaign over some petty bullshit
this is the premise of the entire work

Everyone for Odysseus, do you remember how harshly he played Ajax? Achilles would never do that.

Well the Greeks didn't have the ch sound like chill, and "Achilles" is an English phonetic bastardization. The most technically correct way to scoop over from the Greek is "Akhilleus"
>uh-KEEL-ee-oos
Along the same vain, Ajax is another culprit. There is no "jay" in Ancient Greek, Ajax should be written "Aias"
>EYE-oss
Hope that helps.

Okay.

Makes reading about the Peloponnesian War annoying. Al-see-biadies versus Al-kee-biades.

Wellllllll
Beta is actually more like Veta, and delta is like a soft theta so Alcibiades--hang on lemme peep the ancient spelling

Ἀλkιβιάδης
>ALL-kee-VYA-thees
Where thees rhymes with "lease." Sounds pretty dope to me, my linguistically empoverished aesthete-to-be

I didn't know about the b/v thing. There are a lot of names of regions and people I'm unsure how to pronounce because of the discrepancy between how they were actually said versus how English historians say them.

I would rather learn the ancient Greek pronunciation of names but then I'm afraid that would just be another hurdle to jump over while using English works on ancient Greek history. I like hard k's more than soft c's anyway.

Keep in mind I am conversational in modern Greek, and my Ancient Greek is rusty at the very best. Modern Greek has become super simplistic compared to Ancient Greek. One great example of this is the iotacism phenomenon. Another example, Ancient Greek has multiple accents and breathing marks while Modern Greek has just the breathing mark. The way I put these pronunciations together, if it's not perfect, should be pretty damn close at least...

Also, learning to pronounce words in Greek is WAY easier than learning to be fluent in the language. Give it a shot, user. I can sight read Greek and pronounce the words near perfectly and still have absolutely no idea what I'm saying. You may surprise yourself!

I forgot to add as comfy motivation--it feels pretty cool when you're cruising a translation of something and come across an English-ism like "ch" or "j" or a soft "c", and you think, no that's not right. So you crack open the source text and find the Ancient Greek, and even though you can't really speak it, you can correct your own pronunciation from the source. It's top cozy, man. Not a hard skill to develop, I swear.

Don't hurl your anachronistic bullshit on me you fucking moron. If O isn't the most god-possessed 'character' in either epic then there are no gods in either epic.
But they too are 'characters,' jackass.

Thersites

kys Ajax

The patron saint of Veeky Forums

Achilles was petty as fuck, even though the gods loved him more

Odysseus was the better man

Achilles is not necessarily a flat character just because he's super man. Remember, the essential conflict of the poem occurred because another super man tried to cuck him and take his shit. So he gets his mates from high above to make the war far more difficult than it needs to be. This super man himself was already cucked by Paris who also had help from the Gods.

The might of the entire world keeps getting curbed by the hands of fate and the ignorance of its leaders. The best of humanity suffer from some of darkest and most violent emotions possible, including the willingness to sacrifice thousands of loyal men for the sake of ambition and pride. This is why the poem starts with the word "Rage"

Looking to upgrade from my Fagles translations of the Iliad/Odyssey, is Pope the best version?

>so he gets his mates on high
He has a very influential mother, rather.

Well, yeah.

It's "a-HE-lees" because he was a man's man.

>Beta is actually more like Veta, and delta is like a soft theta
That's modern Greek pronunciation (post koine).