YMMV / The Odyssey

The epic

• Alternative Character Interpretation: There have been plenty over the millennia.
  • Some old sources and poems see Odysseus as a low coward who tricks his way out of fighting violently like a real man. The Prose Edda even shows or posits the transformation of the Greek gods and heroes into the Norse ones – and Odysseus transforms into the trickster, Loki, 'Lie-smith.'
  • The Romans were of two minds about Odysseus (or Ulysses, as they called him) – on one hand, they claimed to be descended from Aeneas and his Trojans, and thus saw him as an enemy; on the other hand, they were also proud because in some versions of the myth, they were also descended from him through his son or grandson Latinus, Aeneas's father-in-law.
    • It is worth mentioning however, the King Latinus in the Aeneid is an old man, yet chronologically the Latinus who was the son of Odysseus/Ulysses would have been seven years old. Unsurprisingly many see these figures as two distinct men who just happen to share a name.
    • The Romans also for quite a while disdained the idea of using trickery in war, considering it cowardly. This also colored their perception. Even when this attitude toward war started shifting, the Roman notion that Odysseus/Ulysses was a cowardly trickster was so deeply ingrained that never went away.
  • Dante puts Ulysses in Hell in his Divine Comedy for false counsel.
  • Furthermore, Zachary Mason's The Lost Books Of The Odyssey is full of Alternative Character Interpretation, such as the story from the POV of a solitary, gentle Cyclops, one where Odysseus actually crafted most of the story up in his life as a bard, and one that posits that both The Iliad and The Odyssey are an extremely elaborate description of a chess game.
  • Some have taken note of the fact that many of Odysseus' adventures are not seen directly, but recounted to the Phaeacians after the fact. Because of this, there have been plenty of people who speculate that Odysseus was embellishing the story — or even outright making things up. The Penelopiad (see below) plays with this; for every person who brings Penelope tales of her husband's adventures, there's another who tells her a far more realistic and less glamorous version of events e.g. instead of being a cyclops, Polyphemus is a one-eyed tavern owner who fights with Odysseus for being stiffed over the bar tab, the Sirens are actually sex workers wearing feathered costumes working out of a fancy brothel, etc.
    • There's even further speculation of this speculation; namely, Odysseus' motive for doing so (assuming he did, of course). Was it to make himself look good? To garner sympathy? To teach some kind of lesson?
  • Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad retells the story from the point of view of the women left behind on Ithaca, Penelope and the maids of hers that Telemachus hangs in The Odyssey.
  • Given Penelope's canon lack of reaction to Odysseus's killing of the suitors and maids, people have been fighting over how to interpret her character. Is she shocked and angry with Odysseus for the bloodshed, further highlighting the tragedy of Odysseus being irreparably changed by the Trojan war? Or does she actually feel relief, making her just as bloodthirsty as Odysseus and further hightlighting their Birds of a Feather relationship?
• Americans Hate Tingle: Probably the oldest example of this trope ever. Odysseus was a national hero to many Hellenic states, where he was praised for his cunning, intelligence, and guile. The Romans, who called him Ulysses, despised him as a villainous, dishonest, deceitful falsifier. Vergil constantly refers to him as "Cruel Ulysses" in The Aeneid; his character did not lend itself well to the Romans, who has a rigid sense of honour and respected the Trojans for their gallant and determined defence. Indeed, the Romans championed the Trojan prince Aeneas as the ancestor of Romulus and Remus.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The story of Ares and Aphrodite's love affair told by Demodocus. It's quite long and irrelevant. Many think this part is an interpolation.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Calypso is sometimes lauded for her rant about the Double Standard of how goddesses aren't allowed to keep mortal lovers like gods are. Her mortal "lover" is being kept against his will and sits on the beach crying every day. In a sense she's arguing that goddesses should be allowed to rape people like gods do.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Penelope is a major one for both Ancient Greek and modern readers alike for being one of the more complex and well-rounded women in mythology and her incredible devotion to her husband despite having a significantly passive role in the plot compare to Odysseus and Telemachus. It is telling that in many cities, she was the one that was worshipped as the symbol of faithfulness and displaced the goddess of marriage itself Hera.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Pretty much everyone who is a fan of the book doesn't know the sequel The Telegony or ignores its existence for its Broken Aesop and Happy Ending Override regarding Odysseus's fate and characterization.
• Genius Bonus: When Odysseus strings his bow, the narration describes the procedure of stringing a recurve bow, a type of bow that is very difficult to string unless you have both great strength and knowledge of said procedure (and may even break your arm if you're not strong or skillful enough), and was a new technological development in the time of the Odyssey.
• Heartwarming Moments: When Odysseus and Penelope finally get back together, they can't stop talking to each other, and Athena has to personally delay the dawn goddess to give them time to talk, maybe do other things, and finally get a bit of sleep.
• Ho Yay:
  • Eurylochus to Odysseus: "You're a hard man, Odysseus. Your fighting spirit's stronger than ours; your stamina never fails. You must be made of iron head to foot."
  • Menelaus talks about evicting everyone from one of his towns and transplanting the entire population of Ithaca there, all so Odysseus could live close by. "Nothing would have divided us in love and joy, till death's dark cloud surrounded us."
  • Also, Telemachus and everyone.
• Narm: The 1997 mini series adaptation is loaded with these moments, from bouts of over-the-top acting, to really dodgy visual effects, in particular when Odysseus' mother being Driven to Suicide involves a shouting match between her and Penelope and a servant rolling around on the ground doing... something. What should be an intense Tear Jerker becomes very hard to take the scene seriously with all that.
  Penelope: (blocking Odysseus' mom's path as she's about to walk into the ocean) RAGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Polyphemus eating Odysseus' men. Especially in the 1997 mini series, where it seems we're spared the gruesome sight while he takes one poor sod offscreen, slams him into the ground a few times, then chomps away like he's a candy bar... Then reels back with the bloody half-eaten corpse of the man now missing his head and a large portion of his upper body, all messily ripped away by the Cyclops' teeth.
  • The Laestrygonians, a tribe of man-eating giants Odysseus encounters after the second meeting with Aeolus. Of all Odysseus' adversaries, they cause the most damage, killing and eating the vast majority of his men and sinking all but one of his ships.
  • Scylla and Charybdis. The former is a monstrous, multiheaded dragon beast and the latter, though often thought of as a living whirlpool, is described more as a horrific Eldritch Abomination consistent essentially of a giant living stomach with flippers (like an underwater Sarlacc on steroids). Heck, imagine having to cross between those two like Odysseus did (twice). You get two options: Either you take your chances with Charybdis, who will swallow your ship whole and then spit it and you out in pieces, or glide by Scylla, who has at least ten heads, all of which are always hungry and always ticked the heck off.
  • Athena... influences the suitors' minds, leading to a frightening description of their hallucinations.
  • Hell, practically everything that Odysseus runs into over the course of his journey is pretty frightening; probably the only exceptions are the Lotus-eaters, (they just want to hang around stoned all day, they're harmless except for tempting the Ithacans from getting home) the bag of winds given by Aeolus, (a huge setback but not otherwise dangerous) and Calypso (who is also just a diversion). Polyphemus plans to eat the entire crew and really does devour a few of them before they can escape. While Circe becomes one of Odysseus' allies, she starts off transforming his crew into pigs, also with the intent of eating them, and at least one adaptation has it that the starving crew don't believe the pig they caught is one of their friends and are about to slaughter him for dinner when he changes back just in time. And then there's incurring the wrath of at least two different gods over the course of it, not the kind of people who want to get on the bad side of under any circumstances.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Argos's scene lasts under forty lines. It's one of the most iconic Tear Jerker moments in mythology.
  • The Laestrygonians are around for less than thirty, but appear in almost every adaptation for their nightmarish actions and their significance to the story.
  • Christopher Lee as Tiresias in the miniseries.
• Tear Jerker: The whole story of Odysseus' dog, Argos. Don't know the story? Well, Argos was his dog, who he trained when he was a pup. Then Odysseus had to leave for 20 years, going to Troy, trying to get back, etc. During his leave, the dog, since his master wasn't there anymore, was neglected by the household servants and made to live outside, staying on a pile of dung to keep warm, getting too old and sick to move anywhere else anyway. Odysseus eventually gets home, disguised as a beggar by Athena, and walks by his dog. He immediately recognizes Argos from across the yard, and Argos likewise instantly senses that the person is his master and wags his tail, but is otherwise too old to move. Since Odysseus is pretending not to be himself, he can't get closer, touch or even show that he recognizes his dog in turn, so he walks away, but he can't help but shed a tear. And the worst part? Argos dies of old age right after Odysseus walks away, having just managed to live long enough to see his master once again. You can't say that you didn't get a bit teary-eyed yourself when you read about that. Argos is a very special dog. To make it even worse, one comic book adaptation had Athena carrying the dog's spirit away to the afterlife with a sweet, motherly smile on her face.
  • Odysseus seeing his mother's ghost (when he hadn't even known she was dead) and trying in vain to hold her is pretty sad, too.
  • Odysseus meeting his old friends and allies in Hades (especially when Ajax still refuses to speak with him even when Odysseus pleads with him to let bygones be bygones). In other news, Achilles is still a whiner (though on the upside, he's reunited with his beloved Patroclus).
  • Telemachus trying, and failing, to get the Ithacan assembly to condemn the suitors is a minor one.
  • While dining with the suitors, Odysseus, still in disguise, recognizes Amphinomos as a relatively decent one, and tries in a circumspect way to warn him about Odysseus' return and to leave before things get bloody. But Amphinomos is, in every sense of the word, doomed.
• Values Dissonance: The story is almost three thousand years old, after all.
  • What's the very first thing Odysseus does on his way home? He and his men make a halt on a foreign coast, where they attack and plunder a town, killing the men and taking the women as slaves. It's described as a completely normal thing for them to do. Although the Cicones were allies of the Trojans, so technically, Odysseus is at war with them.
  • Odysseus bursts into tears while listening to a song about how he caused the fall of Troy. An extended simile ensues comparing him to a woman crying over her slain husband as she's dragged off into slavery by the victors, which comes off as whopping Moral Myopia given that he's been the slaving victor in this scenario.
  • Nowadays, Odysseus and Telemaches executing the handmaidens who slept with the suitors (even though the handmaidens very likely wouldn't have had a choice in the matter) and the goatherd who allied himself with them seems rather... unnecessary, and are cut from most retellings. The ones that do leave it in (like the TV miniseries) usually cut it down to a single handmaiden who is unintentionally killed in the crossfire trying to aid the suitors. This is a major focus of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, which naturally depicts Odysseus' actions in a negative light.
  • In the first song, Penelope politely asks a bard to change his song about the Achaeans' homecoming because it reminds her of her husband. Telemachus orders his mother to shut up, go back to her sewing, and leave the men alone. For a modern reader, this attitude is pretty rude, but in these times, women, even widows, were under the authority of a man who can be their own son. Penelope doesn't seem at all upset, in fact she may even have welcomed Telemachus' asserting himself if in a rather insulting and disrespectful way- all her problems come down to not having a strong male protector after all.
• Values Resonance:
  • The story makes a point of averting Double Standard Rape: Female on Male by acknowledging that Odysseus is held against his will by Circe and Calypso and clearly condemning them for their actions.
  • For being one of the oldest examples of The Quest, it's pointed out several times that Odysseus is not some grand adventurer yearning for treasure; he's just a soldier who desperately just wants to return home. Even in this day and age, it's a plight that many war veterans can relate to.
• The Woobie: Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus, all in their own ways.

The Series

• Retroactive Recognition: Series regular Macro is played by a young Ryan Reynolds, while young Devon Sawa and Jewel Staite have recurring roles as Ludo and Lobelia, respectively.

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