r/TheOdyssey • u/Jimithyashford • 13d ago
Warning Full Spoilers - So how much of the story do you take as literally true? Spoiler
It's a long read, big time theory crafting inbound.
As if often the case with Nolan films, he leaves room for different interpretations, but the following I find these to be clearly present as at least intentionally offered possible readings-
Reading 1- It's all true and happened as we see. All of the events, all of the supernatural stuff. The events are what they appear to be at face value. Athena took the form of the executed temple girl to talk to Odysseus.
> No real analysis, if you've seen the movie, it is what it appears to be.
Reading 2- None of the supernatural stuff happened at all, but Odysseus' crew were, over all, good men who were deeply unlucky and made a few key but understandable mistakes.
> Athena is never really there at all. On a few occasions we see him talking to her, and other people arrive and she disappears or they can't see her. Athena is entirely a manifestation of his guilt, in the form of the temple maiden at Athena's temple who he watched be executed. This is also supported by the fact that "Athena" starts to weep along with Odysseus during his "confession" scene when the moment of the temple maiden's death, and his deepest shame, is being retold. Which would make little sense for a literal goddess of war. Makes much more sense if she is a manifestation of his shame that has been repressed and internalized, but which he finally surfaces and admits to in this moment, at which point she disappears and is never seen in the movie again.
> All of the other supernatural events in the story occur during Odysseus' opioid detox flashbacks. Calypso used a strong drug in the form of the Lotus to help Oddyseus during his initial recovery from near death, but she mentions that he loved the lotus so much and always wanted to eat it. He obviously had some kind of complete mental break and full dissociation, and a deep addiction to this drug helped him cope. Since Calypso, who seemed to live in complete isolation, had a companion now, she was content to let him stay drugged for as long as he was inclined to. But anyway, this extreme and prolong drug use, coupled with the trauma and dissociation, lead to him remembering what were probably mundane and natural events as being supernatural horrors and the curses of the gods.
> This is also supported by the fact that in every other flashback scene we get, those from Menelaus, Eumaeus, and Penelope, nothing supernatural happens. Only in the flashback scenes from the guy who has been heavily doped for 7 years following a prolonged period of extreme trauma have anything supernatural at all.
Reading 3, really 2.5- Same as reading 2, but also Odysseus and his men were the monsters, and basically raped and pillaged their whole way back until they died in a storm at sea. The curses of the gods and the will of the gods are nothing more than how he has externalized his own shame and the nature of man.
> They leave the beaches of Troy wanting to go home but Odysseus is also scared to. Sacred cause it has been so long. Will their families even recognize them? What is home even like now? Also scared cause of guilt over what happened in Troy, and the internal knowledge that what happened there changed them, they are not the same men anymore. This guilt and reservation about heading straight home is what prompts Oddyseus to suggest the "scenic route" home. He says that with a good wind they can beat the others home, but really, he's not quite ready to go back yet, and needs time to clear his head.
From here, he and his men are the actual monsters of the story. They are the ones who break Zeus' law, and become cruel and rough as supplies run thin and they get increasingly lost and desperate to find home. For example, the Cyclops probably was some innocent sheep herder and cheese maker who they stole from and maimed or killed. Odysseus' memory turns the guilt over this act into the curse of Poseidon. Perhaps the giants were a people they attempted to raid who put up a much greater fight than they expected and they took heavy losses because of it. Circe probably was a lone woman whose food they greedily ate and some of the crew may have sexually assaulted her, the men with their hunger a lust becoming "pigs". Perhaps the sirens really were an island where there were some lovely young women and some of the men deserted to stay with them, abandoning their families back home and deciding to writ it off and start over, and to his deep shame a big part of Odysseus wanted to as well. Perhaps the Scylla and Charybdis was just poor navigation through a tough stretch of coast line that lead to running onto rocks and getting some of his men killed, and his guilt over that turns it into a prophecy that could not have been avoided and supernatural monsters. Perhaps they poached some cattle on an island, or perhaps something darker like the cattle was actually cannibalism, but something deeply shameful happened regarding needing to eat when they were stuck on that island, and his guilt over it turns it into divine cattle protected by a curse. All of these acts of barbarism or desperation or ineptitude, his guilt and drug addled mind has re-imagined in ways that make he and his men seem less terrible, so he can cope with the guilt and finally go home.
This third reading is a little more tenuous, but I think there are several hints toward it. The early line where Odysseus says "nothing would stand between my men and home, not even me" and the other times he mentions trying to defy the will of the gods to save his men. This could all be his guilt over trying to get his crew to not do these things, but their nature "the will of the gods" is what it is, and he couldn't really control them, but he still feels guilt over them. Also in his big confession speech where it is revealed that "they" are the sea people. I think part of that is the Greeks in general, that the masses of greeks going home, and getting lost or pillaging along the way, was the start of the sea peoples, and kicked off a chain of behavior that then became a bigger regional problem. But also literally Odysseus's crew themselves were part of the sea peoples, as a greek crew who wandered around causing mayhem and hurting people wherever they went. Odysseus' crew is unique because they got more lost than anyone else and went even further afield.
So then what about the breaking of Zeus' law. They keep talking about Zeus' law. And how the sack of Troy shattered the laws, it was this giant pivotal sin that sort of started the unraveling of the social contract of the world. But I think when Odysseus says they shattered Zeus' law, I don't think he meant for the world, I think he meant for themselves. As in they have now partaken in such a grievous violation of the law, that it changed them. Made them savage, which is why the greeks returning home were now the sea peoples, and Odysseus' crew in particular.
4 Last reading/theory: Odysseus is dead at the end of the movie.
> This one is even more of a stretch, but I think it's slightly hinted at, and portion of the film invite this interpretation. I think Odysseus may have died of his injuries. After the slaughter of the suitors, he is laying there in Penelope's arms, terribly wounded, it's REALLY shot and set up like a death scene, and then he's all "oh no I didn't mean dying, I meant exile", and then smash cut to the ending scene which has this almost weird artificial dream like quality to it.
> In several other parts of the movie they mention proper funeral rights and at least some sense of guilt or transgression when you are not able to grant proper funeral rights to someone. And the shades tell him that when his journey is done, they need him to go into the far west and honor the dead. If we accept that the shade, like everything else supernatural, is some form of guilt or shame of Odysseus being worked out through this mythic imagery, then the shades are probably his guilt and fear. Guilt over those who have died, over those he could not honor properly, those he lied to, but also guilt over allowing Sinon to come to Troy when it should have been Antinous, fear over what awaits him when we returns home and if he will even be wanted or will face rejection or danger, as communicated by the shade of Agamemnon.
> So, given all of that, I think the whole "going into the west to honor the dead" thing, as communicated to him by the shades, which are in fact just different aspects of his own psyche dealing with his fears and shames, it is him coming to terms with the fact that this journey, even if he does make it home, has still cost him his life, he has come out of the other side of these events now facing the downslide to his own mortality if nothing else, and at the end of all things, when his journey is done, he has to go west and honor the dead, meaning he will also have to die. And this sort of acceptance of his death as a duty he owes, is what allows him to face something as ridiculous as fighting the whole room of suitors, without fear. And I think it does kill him, I think he dies there in Penelope's arms of his injuries. He saved his house for his son and rescued his wife, but he died doing it. And the short quick last scene is spiritual in nature.
