A list of characters appearing in The Odyssey.
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Odysseus and his Crew
Odysseus
Odysseus
The main character of the Odysseus. The King of Ithaca, husband to Penelope, father of Telemachus, and the master of strategems.
- The Ace: Given as the King of Ithaca.
- Accidental Pornomancer: On his way home, Odysseus spends years as the bedmate of two beautiful women: the Hot Witch, Circe, and the sea nymph, Calypso. Neither option is entirely by choice, Calypso significantly less so than Circe. The narrative justifies any choice Odysseus might've had in the matter by saying that he never stopped loving or wishing to return to his wife.
- Badass Normal: Odysseus has no special powers beyond being a really devious, clever, strong, and determined man, aided by Athena.
- Bow and Sword in Accord: Odysseus is quite capable of using a sword in close combat, but he seems to be more famous for his amazing bow, which nobody else is even strong (or skilled) enough to string, much less shoot (though, as the epic states, Telemachus might have managed to string the bow on the fourth try had Odysseus not stopped him). He's also a sneaky bastard and clever and stealthy too.
- Consummate Liar: Odysseus demonstrates this many, many times throughout the story.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Possibly the Ur-Example. Where Achilles in The Iliad was a demigod who inspired terror in all challengers with his superhuman strength, was prone to rapid changes in temperament, and lived for the glory of combat, Odysseus is a human with no powers who typically secures his victories through cleverness rather than brute force, remains doggedly focused on one goal for years on end, and takes no joy in fighting except when necessary to protect himself or his family.
- Disproportionate Retribution: After slaughtering the suitors, Odysseus and his allies round up any slave girl who slept with any of the suitors while he was away. They then force the slave girls to clear away the bodies of the suitors before Telemachus hangs them all from one rope.
- Father's Quest: After being 10 years away from his family, Odysseus wants to return back to his wife and son. And an angry and vengeful Poseidon won't stop him!
- Genius Bruiser: The Greeks wouldn't take no for an answer from him because of his famed intelligence. As for his physical abilities, well, among other things, in Phaecia, he hurled a heavy discus much farther than the lighter discuses hurled by the younger men there. Back in Ithaca, he strung his old bow with ease where the suitors failed.
- Guile Hero: Odysseus, as proven again and again throughout the story.
- Kind Restraints: Odysseus had himself tied to a mast to keep from being drawn to the sirens.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Odysseus and his remaining crew escape from the Cyclops when Odysseus has a fit of hubris and mocks the injured Cyclops, along with revealing his true identity. Sure, the mountaintop that is thrown at the ship misses. The raging storms, however, do not.
- No Matter How Much I Beg: Odysseus with the Sirens.
- Nonchalant Dodge: When Odysseus returns home disguised as a beggar, one of the suitors, Ctesippus, throws an ox hoof at him. Odysseus dodges it with the slightest tilt of his head, then gives Ctesippus a grim smile in return.
- Pals with Gods:
- Athena, goddess of wisdom and intelligent warfare, has a long-standing friendly interest in the resourceful and crafty Odysseus, intervening on many occasions, usually taking the form of various friends, relatives, and acquaintances of the three.
- Hermes and Zeus also help on a few occasions, which may or may not have to do with the fact that Odysseus is Hermes's great-grandson and therefore Zeus's great-great-grandson.
- Pride: Odysseus has a really big issue with this. Odysseus does end up taking a very, very long time to get home as a result of it, though his crew arguably suffers more as they end up all dying off, many as a result of his actions.
- Sacred Hospitality:
- Odysseus was big on keeping the xenia. When he spared a priest of Apollo in Ismarus, he was given powerful wine in gratitude.
- When Odysseus and his men immediately started stuffing themselves with Polyphemus's cheese and goat's milk stores without thinking as to whose hospitality they themselves were violating. Odysseus actually recognizes that indulging themselves and fleeing is a serious violation of xenia, hence why he insists on waiting for the owner of the cave to return so he could offer a gift of wine as compensation. That is what gets him and his men trapped by Polyphemus.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: Odysseus is good at making up backstories from whole cloth, which he makes use of when he's trying to keep his identity a secret. It helps that when people press him for certain details, said details are about the person he claimed to have met (Odysseus, i.e. himself), and not about the land he supposedly hailed from.
- Sociopathic Hero: Odysseus, as Harold Bloom mentions, is a man you don't want to cross or be around too long. He's willing to do nearly anything to survive, including sack towns and villages, sell people into slavery, lie, and manipulate, and in the end, after retaking Ithaca, he brutally murders not only the suitors but also the palace servant girls in highly brutal ways. Of course, the Greek idea of The Hero is entirely different from the Christian, chivalric, and modern conception.
- Sole Survivor: Odysseus is the only member of his crew to make it back to Ithaca.
- Tempting Fate: Odysseus bragging after blinding Polyphemus, resulting in his long and miserable journey home.
Odysseus's Crew
In General
- Dwindling Party: As the story progresses, more crewmen die until Odysseus is the only survivor.
- From the Ciconian reinforcements, Odysseus loses 6 men from each ship, making his first loss 72 men due to having 12 ships.
- Polythemus devours two men immediately after denying them his hospitality and eats two more the following morning and two more in the afternoon from his 12 finest fighters.
- Using the Boeotian figure of 120 men per ship, the Laestrygonians would have killed a maximum of 1,254 men and a scout.
- After a drunken night, Elpenor falls off and breaks his neck in Aeaea after falling off the roof of Circe's house.
- Scylla eats 6 of his men.
- The rest (99 men) die after the sacrilege of eating sacred cattle.
- Forced Transformation: Circe turns Odysseus's crewmen into pigs, undoing it after.
- Idiot Ball: Odysseus's men open the bag of winds thinking there were gold and silver inside, blowing them off-course from Ithaca and back to Aeolus.
- Nominal Importance: Only two of them are ever named.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- After being given a magical bag of wind from King Aeolus, Odysseus's crew is convinced that it contains gold and open the bag, releasing the winds that send them right back to Aeolus's kingdom; the king refuses to replace them as he assumes the crew is either cursed or downright stupid. To add insult to injury, they were right off the shores of Ithaca.
- Then, when the crew is marooned on the isle of Helios, the crew gives into their hunger and slaughters several of the cattle despite being explicitly told not to (at the instigation of Eurylochus, who insisted they put ashore for the night when Odysseus wanted to forestall temptation by not landing on the island at all). This results in the ship getting destroyed and all of Odysseus's crew dead.
- Red Shirt: Every single time Odysseus lands on an island, at least a few members of his crew have to die to show that the journey is dangerous. Some get eaten by the Cyclops, others by the Lestrygonians, and Elpenor, seemingly unable to find another way to die, falls off a roof.
- Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: Helios sics Zeus on the crew after his cattle, lightning falls, and everyone but Odysseus dies.
- Surroundedby Idiots: It cannot be overstated just how dumb Odysseus's crew is. From opening the bag of winds to eating Helios's sacred cattle to staying too late sacking a city, the only useful thing they do on the entire trip is row the boat and tie Odysseus to the mast when going past the Sirens.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Odysseus's crew are fated to die away from home.
Eurylochus
Odysseus` second-in-command.
- Number Two for Brains: Granted, he survives longer that most of Odysseus's crew but it's his stupid idea to slaughter Helios's cattle and get himself and Odysseus's whole crew killed.
- Sole Survivor: Eurylochus, suspicious of Circe, elects to wait outside and observe the feast from there. He is thus the only crew member of that party who avoids Circe's Forced Transformation spell, and rushes back to inform Odysseus.
Elpenor
The youngest soldier in Odysseus's company. Only named when he dies falling off the roof of Circe's house and breaking his neck
- Butt-Monkey: Only named since he dies a very pathetic death for a soldier.
- Due to the Dead: He does, however, get a proper burial after Odysseus returns from the Underworld.
- Undignified Death: The reason why he is named.
