Achilles and Agamemnon

It was about Aga offending Achilles' honor and status, not the girl.

Agamemnon was pissed he would have to give up his slave girl, so he wanted Achilles to hand his over, which was a huge affront and essentially stripping Achilles of his manhood and status within the Greek army/world.

Achilles was right to refuse to fight, Agamemnon can go suck a cock. Dude got cucked at home and then murdered by the BBC, what a faggot.

it was patroclus fault for being such a cocktease

achilles couldn't resist that tight beautiful smooth asshole

god lit is dumb

DELETE THIS

Agamemnon was a dick to Achilles first but Achilles was a dick for a much longer and devastating amount of time to the extent where it's unforgivable.

NO
NO
NO
NO
WRONG

They were both pricks

Reminder that according to the greek morality at the time Achilles literally dindu nuffin

Are you saying she wasn't?

In the end, they were both in the wrong. Agamemnon is at fault more so because he is the major reason for the war in the first place, and he initiates the conflict with Achilles. However, Agamemnon is not meant to be the hero of the story, Achilles is. That is why the wrongs that Achilles commits feel so much worse. Achilles is supposed to be this strong honorable hero, yet every time something bad happens to him, he whines to Zeus about how his life is unfair. It makes it seem as though Achilles can not accomplish anything without the intervention of the gods. Add in to the fact that the death of Patroclus could have been avoided if Achilles had gotten off his high horse and just entered the fight, his anger at Hector seems completely unjustified. There was a war, Patroclus entered combat and lost. The odds were in favor of him dying anyway. Compared to all of the lives lost due to Achilles's refusal to fight, the death of Patroclus is very small.

Now include into all of this that Achilles is supposed to be the hero. The hero of he story allowed thousands of men to die because he was slighted by one. The hero of the story allowed hus best friend to die because he refused to listen to said friend. The hero of the story continuously desecrated a dead body for a matter of weeks/months, even after a grieving father came to beg for the release of his sons corpse for proper funeral rights. The hero of the story can not accomplish anything without asking the gods for assistance. And finally, when the hero of the story is told that he will die if he enters the war, he allows his own fear of death stop him from going into combat at the cost of many lives. It is not until Achilles gives into his rage at the death of Patroclus that he returns to fight. His rejoining of the war is driven by malice and revenge and not the good intentions we would expect from THE HERO OF THE STORY.

All of this together makes for quite a disappointing set of qualities for a reader. I understand that this certainly makes Achilles more human in some ways, he fears death, holds grudges etc. However, it also makes him appear quite petulant and obnoxious considering as a hero that he is supposed to be on a level above your average person.

they were both wrong for thinking that women were possessions.

>implying any of the humans/demi-gods can be blamed for their actions when they are just puppets

>blocks your path

user.. easy on the 'the hero of the story's

This is kind of shallow critique, you just point out that he's the main character and should be a good guy and moan on about that for a whole paragraph.

Also you left out Achilles' motivation for entering the war. He chose to join the war to become a legend, a hero, for honour (his mum gave him the choice to 'live short and be remembered or live long and be forgotten in five generations'). From that point on you kinda know that he isn't your perfect do-gooder like Hector.

...

Sometimes the story goes that she wasn't, which the Greeks preferred because human sacrifice was as abhorrent to them as it is to us

yes, you're right. but it doesn't erase the intention of Agamemnon preferring to attend to the war and his army than his own daughter.

I was kind of thinking that too but it was a different time, so you have to think contextuallly

Is he the best in Iliad?

Yes.

I get that, but I'm not trying to emphasize the main character aspect so much as the hero aspect. I know some could say that that is the same thing, but I'm pointing out that Achilles is hailed as some great hero in a great work of literature. I've had two English professors and a high school teacher lecture entire classes on how Achilles is the epitome of ancient heros and their only argument to someone saying otherwise is "Well if Achilles wasn't such a great hero than the gods wouldn't help him". Honestly, that response just doesn't hash my browns if you know what I mean.

Agamemnon. Asserting that Achilles was in the wrong is little more than an admission of forcing modern views onto the work.

Both were wrong. Agamemnon should've respected Achilles, or at least not publicly dishonor him like he did. But Achilles was petty, and should've accepted Agamemnon's generous reconciliation offer (presented by among others Ajax and Odysseus)

>But Achilles was petty, and should've accepted Agamemnon's generous reconciliation offer (presented by among others Ajax and Odysseus)

Achilles quits for the sake of Honor and refuses to return when offered millions times more prizes, arguing that once honor is taken away, mere money/prizes cannot buy it back. He also reasons that all the wealth in the world is not worth him losing his life in an arena where his honor was taken away. When offered honors and awards, Achilles states, “I receive my honor from Zeus, not from corrupt Kings."

A few hundred years later, Socrates would invoke Achilles while facing death at his own trial. Socrates was offered perks and prizes and life if he would only recant his teachings that “Virtue does not come from money, but money and every lasting good of man derives form virtue.”
But then Socrates asked, “Would Achilles back down from battle if bribed by physical wealth?” Socrates reasoned he would be dishonoring the Great Achilles if he ever recanted his teachings.

Simply put, Achilles is a man who lives and dies not for mere prizes, nor perks, nor tenure, nor titles, nor money, but for honor, and honor alone.

WTF
Dude died a heroic death fighting for his people.

>heroic death
>Literally running away from mighty Achilles through the entire battlefield

I admit defeat. You win this time, Bolivar!

People forcing their modern ideology on the Iliad (or any other classic) make me sick.

Didn't the Greeks themselves do that just a few centuries later?

Agamemnon. He very retardedly stepped on Achilles' pride and stole a slave he had rightfully earned. He should have known how valuable Achilles' contributions to the war was and should have been careful to keep him committed and his morale high.

Athena. If she would have let Achilles kill Agamemnon the whole thing would have been avoided.

Another question: Why was Apollo such a little bitch?

Cuck!

times change. get used to it autismo

Achilles was never wrong. Achilles was right about literally everything.

Eris.

As a mortal, he wounds Ares. The """god""" of war.

Anybody who my girl Athena helps is cool.

hehehehe yeah
everyone forgets about that bitch

Re-read the Iliad

There is no real suggestion Briseis loved Achilles. Her asking for marriage is only her wanting to be the wife of a king, rather than a concubine.

Achilles loved her though. Achilles likens their relationship to that of man and wife (he often refers to her as his bride or wife) and compares it explicitly to the relationship between Menelaus and Helen.
After Achilles dies she was pretty grieved too, so she had some affection for him.

Throughout the whole thing all the Trojans wish that Paris was dead and Helen handed back in some form.

Why didn't they do that? Was it purely a matter of losing honour for Priam and Troy? Couldn't they just have shunted the dishonour onto Paris and let him suffer the result of his own actions, instead of ten years of constant war and suffering for his people?

I understand I'm probably viewing this through a distorted lens, but through that it looks illogical.

Hector was based.
Go fuck your self.

Nah. He was just as headstrong as Achilles (leading the whole army outside the walls of troy), his treatment of patroclus' body is almost as disrespectful as Achilles was to his, he tried to kill old nestor an ancient man and non-combatant, he refuses to honor the deal when menelaus clearly beat Paris in the duel, he wrongfuly sported Achilles armor, he is a hypocrite by showing himself angry at Paris but supporting him publicly (being the golden boy of troy he could have made prism give Helen back), he thinks he is invincible because Apollo fights for him and when his courage was ultimately tested it doesn't match up to his arrogance and he flees thrice around troy from the mighty Achilles.

The only reason people like him is because you see him around his family, which you don't get to see of any of the Greek warriors. And even then he treats andromache like she was an idiot and disregards her.

I wondered the same thing. It was suggested a couple times but Paris refused. I don't know why hector or priam didn't force it to happen.

I'm no expert but surely you mean the Greeks of, say, the fifth century would have regarded it this way, considering there is an instance of human sacrifice in the Iliad itself, which is scanned over uncritically

That wasn't a sacrifice to the God though but to a mortal man (patroclus)
>"I'll cut the throats of a dozen sons of Troy in all their shining glory, venting my rage on them for your destruction."

It's more of a revenge killing or funerary ritual killing than a sacrifice.

Unless I'm missing another case of human sacrifice.

Came the day I found my negro

Yes, the colm of irony

t. Euripides

Both.

>Why did Agamemnon and Achilles differ? Was it not for want of knowing what is advantageous, what disadvantageous? Doth not one of them say, It is advantageous to restore Chryseis to her father; the other, that it is not? Doth not one say, that he ought to take away the prize of the other; the other, that he ought not? Did they not, by these means, forget who they were, and for what purpose they had come there? Why, what did you come for, man; to gain a mistress or to fight?—"To fight." With whom? With the Trojans or Greeks?—"With the Trojans," Leaving Hector, then, do you draw your sword upon your own king? And do you, good sir, forgetting the duties of a king, entrusted with a nation, and its cares,
go to squabbling about a girl with the bravest of your allies, whom you ought by every method to conciliate and preserve And will you be inferior to a subtle priest, who pays his court with the utmost care to you fine gladiators?—You see the effects which ignorance of what is advantageous produces.

>Where, then, is the great good or evil of man?

>Where his difference is. If this is preserved and remains well fortified, and neither honour, fidelity, or judgment is destroyed, then he himself is preserved likewise; but when any of these is lost and demolished, he himself is lost also. In this do all great events consist. Paris, they say, was undone, because the Greeks invaded Troy and laid it waste, and his family were slain in battle. By no means; for no one is undone by an action not his own. All that was only laying waste the nests of storks, But his true undoing was when he lost the modest, the faithful, the hospitable, and the decent character, When was Achilles undone? When Patroclus died? By no means. But when he gave himself up to rage; when he wept over a girl; when he forgot that he came there not to get mistresses, but to fight This is human undoing; this is the siege; this the overthrow; when right principles are ruined; when these are destroyed.

>he takes Euripides's fanfiction seriously

I was thinking too, they all legitimately hate Paris yet they let this faggot run around slinging arrows and fucking his stolen wife while the Trojans are slaughtered by the boatload. Different times obviously

The part where Hector removes his helmet so his baby recognizes him is genuinely heartwarming, and absolutely gut-wrenching in hindsight

That's true, I agree with that. But you never get to see the Greeks in that kind of situation. But if you did, I expect for most of them it would be just as tender, so I don't think hector is anything special in that regard.

The only thing I can think of is the honour / respect code. If they acquiesced to Aggy, perhaps it would diminish their honour / respect in the eyes of other countries and they'd be devoured by their own allies who saw weakness, or something.