Hipsy's View: The Illiad

Note: This blog contains spoilers to the movie Troy and the epic poems The Illiad and the Aeneid. If you have not seen the movie or read the poems, and do not want to know the endings or any specific details, I advise you not to read this. But if you don't mind, then carry on and read my blog.


Most of us have seen the movie Troy, which is based on Homer's epic poem The Illiad, and know how it ends: The Greeks invade Troy by hiding in a wooden horse, which was a false offering of peace to the Trojans and was brought into to the city; Briseis killed Agamemnon; Paris, Helen, Hector's wife and child, Priam, and many other Trojans escaped the attack by a hidden door in the palace; and Achilles is killed by an arrow shot through his tendon (the one named after him). But when reading The Illiad, we see none of this; instead, we see the burial of Hector. The ending of Troy is more based on what is read in the Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil.  But instead of seeing the ending of the movie, think of the ending of this tale like this: Helen and Menelaus go back to Sparta as though nothing happened; Andromache, Hector's wife is enslaved and his son Astyanax is thrown off the highest tower of Troy by Greek soldiers because they were afraid of what he would grow up to be as a man; and Agamemnon was murdered by wife. This just a taste of how Hollywood "enhances" an epic tale in order to gain others' attention to the the story.

Like many others, I watched the movie before reading the Illiad, and as usual, the written part of the story was far more better than the movie based on it. In the movie, the battle of Troy is fought and won within almost a year, whereas in the poem, the war has been going on for almost ten years. The movie shows Hector as a strong and good man, which he is, but they neglect to show his arrogance and how his prideful ego brought him to his death. The movie did well showing a little bit of Achilles' vulnerable side, but in my opinion, they could have gone deeper; in it, you see how Achilles is considered almost godlike and is known for his passion to fight and be in war. The poem shows this, but it also shows how he is human, and he does have feelings that can be broken, just like other human beings. The portrayal of Agamemnon was dead on; Agamemnon was power hungry, and greedy. Briseis was barely mentioned in the poem, same with Paris and Helen. If you read the true story and not watched the movie, you would certainly have a different point of view of how it was told.

There were so many differences between the movie and the poems. But either than that, they all gave a story to the audience that will entertain us for generations to come. If the story has been around since before Christ, it is more than likely going to be told after our time has come to an end.