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so did the evolution from 'as if he were invulnerable' to 'he is invulnerable' happen after the iliad, or was it a facet of the tale homer disbelieved?
Good question. I think it's probably most helpful to think of the legend as a whole different series of legends, happening at different times and in different geographies, but overlapping. So, there probably isn't a "core" version that Homer (whatever we mean by Homer) could agree or disagree with, but rather a jumble of local interpretations. Having said which, Homer's tendency in the Iliad (and I realise that this is a bloody odd thing to say while simultaneously complaining that the Gods' involvement is left out in the movie) is to make his mortals mortal - people don't get superpowers as a rule, which means that when mortals do inhuman things (like when Achilles finds himself fighting a river), or mysterious things happen without the gods being involved (like Achilles' horse speaking for the first and only time) it is thrown into very sharp relief. Partly, IMHO, this is about intertext - I have a theory about Helen which is probably a bit offtopic.
So, instead of the physical superpower of unbreakable skin, Achilles gets a sort of metaphysical invulnerability, in which he, alone of mortals, gets to choose his fate (or have foreknowledge of it - the way this is referred to changes in different places in the text); he gets the option of a guaranteed long life if he doesn't go to war, and a guaranteed early death if he does.
Incidentally, invulnerability, or more specifically a resistance to weapons, is a pretty common theme in the Troy story. Just off the top of my head, Ajax Telemonius is sometimes described as invulnerable, having either to hang himself or stab himself in the armpit to commit suicide. Cycnus (the first warrior Achilles fights on the beach of Troy when the boats land) is invulnerable to sword blows (ends up strangled with his helmet straps, I think. Caeneus (mate of Nestor' from an earlier legendary cycle) is invulnerable, but ends up smothered by centaurs and turns into a bird (don't even ask)... then there's Siegfried, of course. Although clearly not Roy.
Back on the movie, does it actually represent the siege as that short? The Iliad does telescopy things with the narrative, where, for example, you get scenes that clearly come from the beginning of the war happening in the early chapters of the book, bt it is essentially a story of what happens over the course of three days... the pacing of the film is something that interests me, because I don't think you can do quite the same thing... |
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