I Straight Up Do Not Believe That Odysseus Did Everything He Did To Get Back To Penelope And Telemakhos.

I found another rare behind the scenes one.

the way that storytelling in the odyssey loops in on itself… everyone in the odyssey wants to know the odyssey. telemachus leaves for sparta in order to hear it. odysseus sits with the phaeacians deep into the night telling it. and he withholds it from people he doesn’t trust, only to reveal himself and tell it again. the sirens and demodocus sing to him about the iliad. penelope tells ithaca's bard phemius to stop singing because he has no songs about odysseus returning; if he can’t sing the odyssey, he shouldn't sing at all

Sauron actually did try to repent, according to Tolkien.

According to Tolkien, there was a time that Sauron genuinely repented and turned away from evil. He even confessed his deeds to the herald of Manwë.

In RoP the reason he was on that boat in the beginning is because he was on his way to Valinor to confess and repent before the Valar and be judged. I'm convinced he booked passage on that boat, then possibly summoned the Worm to destroy most of the ship once he drew closer to Valinor since no mortals would be permitted to accompany him to Aman. He was likely planning to float that raft, alone, to Valinor's gates.

Then he met Galadriel and ended up in Númenor, and decided to start a new life instead. Galadriel was the one who really pushed and pushed him back toward evil because the darkness (vengeance) inside her was that tantalizing.

Sauron totally "fell" for her. He started manipulating her after he abandoned his smithing post and agreed to return to Middle-earth. Everything before that was genuine, especially his desire to start anew.

Sauron genuinely wanted her to rule with him.

Fortunately, Galadriel said no. And that's a good thing, because Celeborn (her husband) is likely not dead. He needs to return to her, so that Aragorn, himself, may one day have an heir. (Because it's important to the entire lotr story... not because it's important for a woman to breed. Come on.)

hey remember that absolutely gut wrenching part in the iliad when hector is running for his life from achilles, totally out of sorts, completely outmatched, thinking he’s been abandoned by Troy and everyone he loves, until he sees his brother, deiphobos—his dearest brother, the only person who showed up to fight by his side—and feels so much relief because he doesn’t have to face achilles alone—and thanks him for being the only one in Troy stand beside him? and so hector goes to achilles with new courage, hurls a spear at him, misses, is so discouraged, but nonetheless turns to his brother to ask for a new one because so long as deiphobos is there, there’s hope. but he’s gone. and hector, as he stands facing the death that has been destined for him since before he was born, has this moment of realization that no one ever came to help him. no one is standing beside him, and deiphobos is still behind the Trojan wall watching hector die alone like everyone else. what he saw was just Athena’s cruel trick to get him killed.

yeah, so, that makes me cry.

Electra ‼️‼️

ref : courage anxiety and despair: watching the battle (James Sant 1850)

One of the funniest real-world things to mix with the Iliad is that in Hittite society bird omens/reading birds was like.

A really important divination method.

Maybe not THE most important but it was big and it was complex and involved.

And then you have Hektor "fuck your bird signs" of Troy.

thinking of King Priam's grief, watching Teucer, the child of the sister who was stolen from him and Troy all those years ago, the sister who he has longed for all these years, stand against him and his children during the trojan war

Medusa and the blind woman in love

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the telemachus-menelaus-helen scene in the odyssey is frankly insane btw like the fact that menelaus is trying as hard as he can to be subtle about telemachus’ presumably dead father before helen bursts into the room and is like hey guys probably shouldn’t say this but I knew your dead dad lmfao!!!! and everyone starts crying. so she drugs everyone at the table to make them stop before talking in WAY too much detail about the time she bathed and nursed odysseus back to health in front of not only her husband but odysseus’ son and then menelaus starts talking equally extendedly about how helen tried to get them killed in the war and like their stories are mentioning odysseus but clearly there is some unresolved baggage going on between them from the trojan war and telemachus just has to sit there silently until they finish at which point he IMMEDIATELY excuses himself and says they all need to sleep. homer was crazy for that

‘The Divine Eros Defeats the Earthly Eros’ (detail) by Giovanni Baglione, c. 1602.