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torvagatai · 6 years

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honestly why do all modern retellings of the iliad make paris and helen out to be star crossed lovers who doomed the world because they were too horny to consider the fallout of their elopement?

i’m all for adaptations giving the women of the iliad more agency, but not at the expense of their characterisation and cleverness. even though she’s not in it much helen is one of the iliad’s most fascinating characters because she defies the reader’s expectations by not just being a pretty face. she’s as clever as she is beautiful and crucially, she knows that paris is a useless idiot. she’s not shown to have a single drop of affection for him. not only that, she knows that everyone in troy hates her and blames her for their troubles (instead of, you know, the man who kidnapped her) and yet she manages to survive 10 years in a city full of people who want her dead.

give me a modern adaptation that portrays helen as a captive, as a woman so used to being bartered and objectified that she knows she had no choice but to marry menelaus and no choice but to leave with paris. give me a helen who, for survival’s sake, is polite to her captors in public but privately despises troy and greece alike. give me a deceptive and tricksy helen whose true alliances are unclear - a helen whose only true loyalty is to herself. give me a helen who has little to no agency and very few friends, but still makes the most of her circumstances, and manages to survive in a hostile city for 10 years. show me the helen who saw that troy was falling and rather than wait to die at menelaus’ hands, managed to seduce menelaus into taking her back after 10 years of war, as he had his sword at her throat.

give me an adaptation which shows what the trojan war was really all about: men fighting over the ownership of a woman who doesn’t want to be owned by either side.

#lucy watches #troy: fall of a city #helen of troy #classics #the iliad #bascially helen of troy is the ancient version of sansa stark trapped in king's landing #and i'm bitter that no adaptations have recognised how much more powerful her story could be #if they actually followed homer's original characterisation of her #just finished ep 1 of t:foac and other than this i'm enjoying it so far!#1k

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chryseis · 6 years

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Iphigenia and Clytemnestra in the preview for next week, I’m screaming!!!

#'this doesn't look like a marriage altar'#i'm going to cry my eyes out #hannah watches t:foac

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newvegascowboy · 3 years

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Sorry for all the iliad posts and this is probably the last one but

I think its really interesting to view agamemnon as a sympathetic character as t:foac tries to do in the beginning. Like, they give us a man who wants to support his brother. He gives up his daughter in order to do that. Suddenly, failure is not an option. He turns into a militant despot DESPERATE for a reason as to why his daughter had to be taken away from him. He sees an enemy in Achilles who threatens to make him lose a war, making his daughter's death worthless.

The shit with Cryseis is not the acts of a man who understands a father's pain, but a man who wants to inflict his same hurt on other people, which at least in T:foac, carries over when Agamemnon makes Odysseus drop Astyanax off the walls which...is an ouch, for sure.

Idk. I think it's good character writing.

#not fallout #kal talks #i mean agamemnon fucking sucks and he ABSOLUTELY gets what he deserves when clytemnestra killa him #but when you can see WHY a character behaves the way he does? i like that

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battlestar-royco · 4 years

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speaking of historical inaccuracy and poc, do you remember the drama around troy: fall of a city? it was a show based on the trojan war where many of the characters, including achilles + the founder of Rome aeneas, were cast as black. people went crazy. the show got review bombed and all you can ever find about it online is people talking about how bad black achilles is. the things that drive me crazy: 1 it’s based on a Myth, not exactly going for historical accuracy and (1/2)

(2/2) 2, in 2014 there was a Hercules movie starring the rock, who is also not white, but nobody said a thing. and they shouldn’t have! but it makes it real obvious that this is about skin color. the actor who played achilles was a dark skinned black man, and if he was white passing nobody would have said a damn thing. i can’t argue that t:foac is a good show, but the reputation it’s gotten is without question bc of racism and colorism, not “”genuine concern”” abt historical inaccuracy.

No, I actually completely missed out on that drama because I had no idea the show existed until a few months ago when I was looking into Alfie Enoch. I was going into one of those bouts of sadness about all the black characters who I miss because they were killed for dumbass reasons; I’ll never forgive you HTGAWM. People complain about black actors being cast in literally everything, and so often shows and movies are cancelled before they can get on their feet because people can’t stand to see a black person on their screen for more than 2 hours at a time. Instead of admitting to racism, they use language like “the project was too ambitious” or “ahead of its time” or “historical accuracy” (though I’m willing to bet many of these same people had no issue with Spartacus or the Brad Pitt Troy or the Disney Hercules), or they blame the actors. It’s kind of funny how I’ve seen franchises last for years despite being full of white people who can’t act, and how just-above-mediocre white actors get showered in accolades every year while actors of color are still winning “firsts” in certain categories 🤔.

#maxine talks period dramas #literally the amount of times a white person has told me 'oh but x black actor can't act :/' hm maybe you just have an empathy gap

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pelideswhore · 2 years

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hiii. i need some help with an assignment but this is also just personal curiosity so i hope you don’t mind! we’re looking into helen of troy and i’ve notice (i shamelessly skimmed your tag on her) and you mentioned in one that she went with paris to have her voice heard? os smth like that? may i ask the summary of this version? or even some pointers on it? i’ve mostly (through google, i’m sorry) seen accounts of her story being either 1.) kidnapped by paris or 2.) seduced by him, which is the only one where she went willingly. I’m curious about this variation you mentioned! Thank you!

hi! i hope this answer comes in time for your assignment! i’m sorry for the slight delay, i had to rewrite this a few times for it to make sense. i hope this still helps.

(note that i’m gonna narrate this like canon i have hard proof for, which i don’t. i’m stating everything as facts cus i don’t wanna use “i think” or “i believe” everyone other sentence)

first of all, this idea of mine is not entirely original. it came to me when i was watching this video (starting 12:50) which is not entirely professional, but i did use other sources and retellings to build on the theory.

Helen’ characterization is very important to this theory of mine so here are a few words I would use to describe her: smart, independent, ambitious, politically cunning and quick-witted among other things. Honestly, I feel like Odysseus would be a good parallel for her. If you want to know more about my Helen characterization you can check out this and this. Importantly, Helen doesn’t like anything static — imo she enjoys the basic idea of change in itself.

Now a quick rundown of my thought process for those who might not be familiar with it. First of all, I think that Helen had a say in the initial decision of her marriage to Menelaus. If she wasn’t the the one who made the choice, then she manipulated her father into choosing Menelaus on her behalf. A marriage to Menelaus carries many benefits for Helen, among other things:

he’s rich

he has connections with Mycenae/Agamemnon without actually being Agamemnon

Helen knows him better than all the other suitors (since he grew up with her/was raised by her father)

he knows and loves Helen, he wouldn’t harm her

So, Helen and Menelaus’ marriage goes well for long enough that a daughter is born and has time to grow. But there are also some cons that Helen hadn’t considered when marrying Menelaus:

she’s now only “Menelaus’ wife”, not her own person

she has the added (unwanted) responsibility of being a mother

she married Menelaus out of convenience, didn’t love him at the time/didn’t recognize it as love

under Menelaus, women of Sparta lost many of their rights (compare to T:FoaC)

marriage means a static life

she doesn’t like being loved (i can’t explain this better than Florence, just listen to Girls Against God)

On top of that, Paris’ arrival gives Helen more incentive to run away:

Paris apparently loves her (compare to the last point above, i don’t think Paris *actually* loved her, but i think it was good enough for Helen)

the women of Troy had more freedom than women in Sparta at that point in Menelaus’ reign

she loses her responsibilities as a parent, hence gaining freedom (Paris doesn’t need an heir as much as Menelaus did since he’s neither king nor heir apparent)

Paris is young and hot

she thinks she can learn to love him with time (like she did with Menelaus)

Some other points to consider would be that a) she definitely didn’t expect Menelaus to start a war on her behalf, a fact that would’ve hindered her from going if she had known and b) Helen must’ve been under the extremest of protection following her kidnapping by Theseus, causing her to feel restricted. Considering that, running away would be a response to years of what seemed like captivity and also an act of protest.

Now, there’s no denying that basically everyone always speaks of the “rape” or the “kidnapping” of Helen, most importantly the Iliad does so itself, but I still think she ran away willingly. There’s an important distinction in who is talking about what specifically in the Iliad. Here is an excerpt from Helen’s perspective:

Ah! had I died, ere to these walls I fled // False to my country and my nuptial bed!

Yes, Menelaus (and others) speak of rape in other situations, such as in Book 8.

Already noble deeds ye have performed // A princess raped transcends a navy stormed

Helen though speaks of a choice. Obviously, Menelaus wasn’t there when Helen disappeared, but Helen was. She is more trustworthy in this situation. I don’t blame Menelaus for framing the situation as a kidnapping, because Helen had been kidnapped before which is cause for worry. Beyond that, even if Menelaus knew Helen had gone willingly, her “kidnapping” was merely an excuse for a war which Agamemnon had been anxiously waiting for. It was the perfect opportunity he couldn’t let pass. Another related argument for Helen having ran away (and that Menelaus knew) is the fact that Menelaus was close to killing her as punishment during the siege. In case of a kidnapping, she’d carry no fault and there’d be no reason to kill her, considering she’d be more of a victim than Menelaus himself (who undeniably suffered greatly).

As a quick side-note, I also think it’s important to consider Paris’ personality in this response. In my eyes, he’s simply not enough of a douchebag to kidnap or rape someone. Admittedly, I don’t consider the sex he had with Helen in Book 3 completely consensual, but I also don’t think he had any malintent whatsoever and, as said, he would never kidnap or rape anyone.

You also mentioned the seduction variation in your ask, which I am also not convinced by. Here are a few reasons why. First and foremost, I don’t consider Helen sentimental at all. She makes decisions based on what she knows, not based on what she feels, so love is no reason to leave the luxurious life she led. Some examples beyond her leaving with Paris are her ruthless murder of Deiphobus, which she did to regain Menelaus’ favour, or her imitation of Penelope’s voice beside the Trojan Horse, to make sure that there were in fact soldiers inside.

Beyond that, Paris simply doesn’t seem like the guy Helen would fall in love with. Ignoring the fact that I consider Helen to be on the aro spectrum, Paris, as a person, is somewhat of a downgrade from Menelaus. To back this up with some proof, her speech about Paris in Book 6 does not seem loving at all.

Heaven filled up all my ills, and I accurst // Bore all, an Paris of those ills the worst. // Helen at least a braver spouse might claim, // Warmed with some virtue, some regard of fame!

There are of course scenes where Helen seems like or even explicitly states she loves him, but Helen is canonically a good actress and acting in order to gain his and his family’s favour and thereby guaranteeing herself a place to live in luxury is nothing. Helen would do anything to survive, among other things, act.

Finally, there is Helen’s attempt at saving Paris’ life after he gets shot, which could be interpreted romantically. I simply do not consider it a romantic interaction. It could have been motivated by friendship or, in her case more likely, by guilt.

Again, I hope this comes in time for the submission date of your essay. If there’s anything I haven’t answered or you have follow-up questions, feel free to ask. I hope I can respond faster now that I have all this out of the way :)

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