The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

I heard Achilles was pretty cool. He just had some pretty gross tastes. x_x

The very first line of the Iliad tells you what the whole thing is about.

What was it again? I haven’t read it in years. ^_^;;

"Rage"

"Sing to me, oh Muse, of the rage of Achilles, that did send down many a noble Achaean to the House of Death..."

Note: That's from memory, so I may have gotten a word or two out of place.

Edited by DeMarquis on Apr 21st 2024 at 2:46:43 PM

"Hero" in the Ancient Greek sense is very different from the modern concept today.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Apr 21st 2024 at 12:06:32 PM

Very, very true.

To be fair, "hero" had a different definition for all of the ancient world than it does for the modern age.

You could probably count the number of ancient heroes who weren't jerks to some degree or another on two hands...

Edited by Angelspawndragon on Apr 21st 2024 at 12:22:48 PM

Oh yes, "hero" did not mean "good" back then, it just meant someone who did great deeds, and not always good ones.

Even the movie Troy does not entirely lionize Achilles, he still retains some of his less pleasant characteristics.

It's also kind of disturbing on a meta level to turn Brisseis into a love interest for Achilles. In the Illiad, she is just his slave, a war trophy, and is little more than a pawn being passed back and forth over Achilles' allegiance. The movie turns her into a Trojan princess who falls in love with him for... dubious reasons at best, with connotations of "better him than being thrown to the soldiers".

They didn't. Orcs are a Tolkien original. Supposedly he got inspiration from the monster Grendal from the saga of Beowulf, but I'd say the similarities are awfully scarce.

So when did "hero" become synonymous with "good"? And on that note, who invented the idea of the Anti-Hero?

My best guess would be...the release of Action Comics 1. As for Anti-Hero is the former arrived that late then it would likely stem from either Detective Comics 1 or Amazing Spider-Man 1 at earliest.

Of course it is very likely that there was a softer shift in the "mystery man" pulp fiction, but Supes, Batman and Spidey seem the most clear cut progentors of the archetypes as modern pop culture conceptualized them. Partially in Hero's case as its likely the anti-Hero were merely the traits that didn't carry over to the modern definition.

I'd imagine equating the term "hero" with "morally upright" is actually pretty old, though I can't quite pin down when the meaning shifted.

I would assume that the definition shifted to strongly imply a character was morally good because "heroes" often are portrayed as role models to follow. Not merely good people, but people that are an easily-viewed model of ideal behavior that you should strive to emulate.

The term "antihero" dates back to the early 1700's, but to my understanding, the concept of an antihero and familiarity with it is very old. Thersites would be an early example of an antihero.

I will also note that, like with the term "hero", the concept of "antihero" has also changed in meaning over the years.

Personally, I define an antihero as "a protagonist that has characteristics that are stereotypically unheroic". It doesn't necessarily require that the character has any particular moral failing, but it requires to subvert tropes we associate with being heroic.

Some examples:

• Batman is an antihero, not because of any moral failing but because his shtick is subversive. He is a hero that embodies the concepts of fear and darkness. These are concepts we would normally associate with villains, but here he is being a good guy.

• Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman is, at the very least, an antiheroic moment. The scene is set up to be a challenge inviting him to show us, the audience, how badass he is. Instead, he refuses and just shoots the guy. I suppose you could also argue pragmaticism over "fairplay" is not stereotypically heroic.
  • To use a point of comparison: Captain America in Winter Soldier casts aside his shield when dared to once, for the doylist purpose of giving the audience a cool fight scene and showing us how badass he is.

• Guybrush Threepwood is an antihero because he's a good-natured dork in a pirate story.

• The Doom Slayer is an antihero because single-minded anger is not something we associate with heroes.

So, it's not necessarily about morality, so much as it is about subverting stereotypical "heroic" behavior.

Han Solo and the whole "Han shot first" thing would also be a good example of antiheroism, even more so than Indy's example, because in our modern conception of heroism, heroes are supposed to be noble and not pre-emptively kill an enemy.

If someone here has access to the OED, we could see what the etymology says.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 21st 2024 at 1:19:47 PM

I’m watching The Ten Commandments, and the part I’m at made me remember this. Is it true that the last Plague (the one that caused the deaths of the firstborn Egyptian sons) took place during a full Moon? The movie has it happening during an eerie-looking quarter Moon.

The Ancient Greek heroes are mostly morally upright by their standards. You don't see any of them violating Sacred Hospitality, and though they can sometimes lapse into hubris, it's more like "no man can defeat me" and not "no god can defeat me."

some do thought they were better than the gods but they were usually immediatly punished for daring to do that.

I was gonna say, in regards to the ancient and medieval societies you have to understand the amount of Values Dissonance at play in terms of what is considered morally upright, which is why in some ways they were more (for lack of a more appropriate term) liberal and more conservative than people today think. (Also, that’s a whole other topic that this thread isn’t really about).

Mythological heroes in a way are more reflective of the societies that spawned them and what they regard as the kind of ideal Greek/Roman/Norse/Egyptian, etc., should aspire to be.

Though somewhat ironically, there’s probably an argument that can be made that the earliest forms of the modern sense of what a hero is comes from the legends of Robin Hood, at least the relatively later ballads where he became a protector and avenger of the poor and downtrodden.

Edited by Angelspawndragon on Apr 21st 2024 at 7:56:07 AM

If robin hood came out todat conservatives would call it, liberal propaganda.

Achilles' story was of a Glory Hound. He had a choice between a long peaceful life with no glory, or a short and glorious one. He chose the latter.

Interestingly, in The Odyssey, Odysseus encounters Achilles' shade in the afterlife. Achilles has done a complete 180, telling Odysseus that he'd have rather had a longer life even one as meager as a slave than die so young.

The Odyssey in general isn't a story of personal glory. Odysseus isn't out to get glory anymore — he just wants to go home.

Edited by M84 on Apr 21st 2024 at 11:05:08 PM

During the Red Scare some members of government actually tried to get Robin Hood banned from being taught in schools for "promoting communism".

Edited by Kaiseror on Apr 21st 2024 at 10:04:44 AM

point proven

This seems to be a bit of a recurring theme in the Trojan-related stories by Homer. There was also the bit where Odysseus and Ajax both laid claim to Achilles' armour, and put it to a vote. Ajax argued "I'm the biggest and strongest. Odysseus is a pansy who fights with a bow. Ajax 2024 BCE!". Odysseus basically said "Look, if courage, honour and strength were enough to get us past these walls, we'd have done it years ago. Let's try something else." (at least that's how I remember it. It's been a very long time)

Odysseus won the vote, and Ajax committed suicide.

Generally speaking most Classical heroes did meet rather shitty ends so I'd say the societies did maybe recognise that it wasn't exactly ideal behaviour?

As far as I'm aware, "hero" had a connotation more like "great man"— which is to say, someone with an outsized impact and who was larger-than-life, for better AND for worse, than the average person.

Ironically, Troy has them win the war in a matter of weeks. Petersen did defend the time compression, but it does diminish the whole war a bit. Movies just don't do ten year long conflicts very well.

Well, I wouldn't want anyone emulating Batman's parenting skills either.

Yes, that is my understanding as well.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 22nd 2024 at 11:08:40 AM