Book Two is Better
A fantasy readthrough podcast with Avery and Travis. Bug us on Reddit/Twitter @BookTwoIsBetter, or email us everything you love or hate at booktwoisbetter@gmail.com
Book Two is Better
The Odyssey by Homer and also Christopher Nolan
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We read the movie. We watched the book. And now we’re here to ask the hard questions: where does Tom Holland land on the Michael Cera to Jason Statham spectrum?
Where's my dad?
SPEAKER_01I'm all down.
SPEAKER_02Papa.
SPEAKER_01Crazy, you don't know about the children's production of Finding Nemo, the musical.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm gonna watch it after this.
SPEAKER_01It's real good. We were just in OHI, California. And by two days, we missed children's production of How to Train Your Dragon musical.
SPEAKER_00Yo, How to Train Your Dragon, top five all-time movie for me. What about the kids' musical local production? Probably still top five all-time for me.
SPEAKER_01The off, off, off, off, off for on web production. We went to go see a Grateful Dead cover band. Um, and I was asking Kathy, I was like, like, be honest with me. Wouldn't you rather go see that kid's musical of How to Train Your Dragon or This Cover Band tonight? Very quick answer. Really? Dragon musical. Yeah. Oh, and I was like, Caffy's just the absolute best. Kind of agree. I've seen a million dead cover shows, but I've never seen a bunch of local 12-year-olds uh sing about Toothless. How how to go, though? It was great. The show? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They started uh set two with Scarlet Fire, man. The place was bumping. Incredible. Um one disappointing note on on at least the one production of the How to Train Jagger musical I found on YouTube. Uh they didn't have like a big puppet. They just had a a girl with a tail and little ears playing toothless.
SPEAKER_00Dude, this was such a good opportunity for a wagon.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I know.
SPEAKER_00That's my canon. You know how I know that character their set design must have really sucked because you didn't text me a picture of the wyvern dragon looking thing. Like if there was any inclination, it looked like a draft. Actually, the version I saw was a bunch of kids in Central Park. So you could have, you know, in theory, could have gone. I mean, I was sending you pictures of uh a Jesus on a donkey comparing it to Oleg and the Virtuk.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the only person who's ever okay. We're getting we gotta we gotta stop doing what we're doing. Uh see the Lego in it stunning. How long that takes? Like 20 minutes. Chavis showing me Lego Flowers. Yeah, watch us on YouTube. You can get the medical reception is special. The Lego flowers. Um Do you want to go? Do you want to go to Greece? Oh, you betcha I do. Can I get you some olive topanade?
SPEAKER_00Oh god, I just want to cover myself and bathe myself in olive oil.
SPEAKER_01I wasn't expecting Odysseus to lube himself up with olive oil. That feels like a almost defensive joke someone would make about Italians.
SPEAKER_00But one of my favorite parts of the entire book was when he's been gone from Calypso for like six days before he washes up on the island of nymphs. And he's like, a warm bath. I'm not accustomed to being cared for like this. It's been ages since I left the house of Calypso. It's like, brother, you've been gone, you've been gone less than a week. Let us not forget Odysseus is a very fancy boy. Odysseus wants to be pampered. And in fact, most of the conflict of the novel is when he's not pampered to his liking. Pamper me. Literally, he goes to every island and he just asks for gifts. And then the only times he gets in fights are when people are like, no.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna get into the vanity of Greek culture later. Yes. Um, but not now. Okay. What are we doing today? Well, our good friend John Homer penned one hell of a story. That Ben recited probably at some point, and then wrote a long-ass poem that is only partly about the Odyssey. The Odyssey is a pretty short segment of it, actually. The Odyssey comprises the middle third of the Odyssey. The rest is his son running around and listening to other people's Odysseys, and then a wacky revenge tale.
SPEAKER_00I also think it's funny that the Odyssey is just told by Odysseus, and nobody is there to back up anything that he says.
SPEAKER_01You know what? John Homer, do we have an on is this quoth? Is he the proto-quoth?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Wow. Wow. This is great. The most unreliable of narrators. Okay. But here we go. But we saw that we saw the book in a movie.
SPEAKER_01Bang bang. We read the book, we saw the movie, we listened to the soundtrack. We heard the boat. We DMed Travis Scott to see if he'd come on. Did not respond. John Homer himself wouldn't come on the pod. John Homer, unfortunately, many thousands of years dead if he existed at all. Okay. Well, let's just rip it. Okay, I think there's no good way to do this because we can't just like talk about the Cyclops and then in 30 minutes talk about the Cyclops. Or we could. I'm gonna ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00I have a place to start.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, hit me. I'm f I'm floundering.
SPEAKER_00The preview of other mommy in the movie theater.
SPEAKER_01I don't think I made it to that.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, it was good. No, it's the most jarring and horrific thing I'd ever seen. And it was turned up to like 400 decibels.
SPEAKER_01400 decibels will come up again. Dude, was your theater? Did y'all have the Trojan horse sushi that you can fill with popcorn? No, they weren't selling it.
unknownFuck.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was at a Regal said and I think that's an AMC thing. I don't even know if that was a real.
SPEAKER_00It might have just been sold out, but I had a fat bowl of popcorn and we smoked a couple Jiminis before the doobies. With the boys. We had a seven deep lads showing in Bodice.
unknownMan.
SPEAKER_01Boys really do come out for the Greeks. I I don't know if I would ever want to hit a doobie for a movie that's over two hours long, especially when seeing it in a recliner.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's risky business.
SPEAKER_00Luckily, I couldn't fall asleep because it was the loudest movie I've ever been to in my life. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I had a I had a bit of a fight or flight response to my IMAX. I also got like the I got the like vibrating saddle seat like fucking erection chairs then with it which was not great for the bass-boosted Christopher Nolan movie.
SPEAKER_00Did you see the did you see 4DX? Was it in 4DX or no?
SPEAKER_01There's no like wind and waves, but it did have like haptic seats when there was heavy bass, which somehow was the entire movie. So I was just getting like teeth rattled for two and a half hours.
SPEAKER_00I did see some clips of people in the true 4DX theaters just getting thrown around in the waves. That actually looked kind of fun. I mean, if you're gonna go, just go all in.
SPEAKER_01Go all in. I mean, we did go to second row IMAX. Bold. Got to see Tom Holland's giant curved face. Oh loved it.
SPEAKER_00He's so good at not having an expression. Man, if you need a hapless boy in your film, give him a call. If you need a somewhat forgettable, perfect role player. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's unfortunate. He's not a bad actor. Yeah. He's not.
SPEAKER_00He's not bad at all. And I actually genuinely like his personality from interviews and what I've seen of him.
SPEAKER_01So he's like the perfect. Is he the exact middle ground between like Michael Sarah and Jason Statham? Yeah, I think so. No, he he's closer to Sarah. On the Sarah to Statham spectrum. No, he's an action star.
SPEAKER_00He's a Marvel superhero. But has a bit of Sarah energy about him. That's what I'm saying. I think he's actually perfectly in the middle ground. Excellent. Okay.
SPEAKER_01We'll make sure to revisit the spectrum on um future episodes.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Well, how'd you feel about the movie?
SPEAKER_00Are you a Christopher Nolan guy?
SPEAKER_01No. Like I haven't seen a tremendous number of his films, and those that I've seen, I just kind of liked. They were just all the Batmans. I'm not a superhero guy, so they were like good superhero movies. Um Inception was the first time I smoked weed in public, so that was a very memorable experience for me. Um so I hold that deer, but like, am I ride or die for Inception? I don't know. I haven't seen it since I was like 21. Yeah. What about you?
SPEAKER_00I've always loved the soundtracks. I love the spectacle of the movies he makes. Like there's scenes from Dark Knight and Inception that I'm always gonna remember. So I think he does a great job of like these huge practical effects set pieces. Um and I think he's a guy who's been carried by really good actors in some of his movies. Like I think about Heath Ledger, like I think about Bale. Like there's some really good performances.
SPEAKER_01Um was he carried, or did he just give them a great platform to rock out?
SPEAKER_00I think a little bit of both. He gave them a huge budget and really cool effects. But I don't think the writing, especially dialogue for Nolan, has ever been something I'm a huge fan of.
SPEAKER_01I know. Yeah, I think that's where I land is like for a guy making blockbusters, popcorn movies, unbelievable at it. Like you're not gonna have a bad time, but like I don't know that that man will ever bring tears to my eyes in a movie. Um, but I mean that's totally fine. Like and I don't know, I think it's like rarer and rarer that there's a movie or a TV show or anything that it feels like the whole world is seeing, and he sort of has that power.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I'm just enjoying having like a true water cooler moment, especially about something that's like pretty close to the things we love.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. I mean it's come up in conversation so much. Um and it and I think the one thing he is really good at is like he understands the mechanisms of what people want to see in film. Like he understands the tropes and the character design and the set pieces and like the the heroism. Like he knows what he's doing, like he's clearly a student of this stuff, like it's very purposeful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's not nearly as far down this road as the book Project Tail Mary. But he's there to please, man. Yeah, and he's not quite Michael Devin volume, like no, okay, not Michael Bay.
SPEAKER_00Michael Bay's who has been very honest that he's making movies for his 13-year-old self, you know. Nolan is not that. Um, but he does love a big action sequence. It's pretty good at it.
SPEAKER_01He does. He does. Um, so I don't know. We'll leave we'll leave further discussions for it. But all in all, what did you think of the movie?
SPEAKER_00There okay, all in all, I had a great time. Like, yeah, I had a blast, I went with friends, I had popcorn, it was loud. We had good, like it did all the things of a fun movie. Like it it's the same level of movie going for me as like Top Gun or Mission Impossible. Like I went, I knew what I was getting, I had a great time. There were Twisters. Yeah, yeah, Twisters was so good. Um there were parts where I was like, man, why is this so sad and melancholy and like dimly lit? And where'd all the sex go? Yeah. So like I think he made some choices to make it like a very soul-seeking, you know, where are my morals, what is society kind of thing. I don't think it had to be like that, but that was his choice, and he made it, and he did a pretty good job of it. And the movie looked incredible. So yeah, I didn't have any complaints. Yeah. Technical showcase. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yeah, I don't know. It sounded great, it looked great. I loved the cast. Like I had a great time. I like to talk to my co-workers about it. I got my favorite cooking deal bites candy, which no one else seems to enjoy or know exists. I know that, I know that exists, but I did a bunch of cuts. Those things rip. Um, but you know, I on the more negative side, I do think it left me a little cold. It didn't really make me feel anything, which could be my fault. Um and I do think it I don't know, felt like it wanted to try to say something about war and the um maybe four to five hundred references to Zeus's Law and all of this. The people from the sea. I don't think it said it that well, and I think what it was trying to say wasn't particularly interesting to me, even though I'm like always down for an anti-war movie. But um, I don't know. I think like love thy neighbor as a message is I've we've we've heard that a couple times. I could have used like a more interesting spin on it.
SPEAKER_00Um definitely hit you over the head with the message. Yeah, it's just like Bronze's ending.
SPEAKER_01If the message is gonna be love thy neighbor, I think you can deliver it a little more subtly. Yeah. Throw it out there.
SPEAKER_00I don't think he had to tell us the C people were that the C people they were the C people at the end. Like I think that would have been fun to infer and have as a little bit of a you know, not hidden message, but a little bit more of a subtle message. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The the Our Age of Bronze was a really special moment in the film that I um didn't love.
SPEAKER_00No. What did you I would put it that's pretty much my lowest point, along with riding off into the sunset in a sailboat.
SPEAKER_01High point? Somebody get these beggars out of here.
SPEAKER_00While smiling for some reason. Okay, maybe let's let's talk about the actors. I thought Robert Pattinson was elite.
SPEAKER_01Can you give me a oh should we should we just could okay? Let's just tier rank these guys real quick. Yeah. Let's do it. Okay. Do you can you pull up the cast quick? Or you want me to get it? Yeah, I'll pull it out. I got it. Okay, you got it. You're faster. I got my loudest, clickiest keyboard. Let's see if that uh let's see if that makes it uh into the final edit. Okay. Well, we've got to start with the top, right? Yeah. That's tier. Good will hunting himself, Matthew Damon. Is this like over all performances or in the context of the movie? I think it has to be in the context of the movie, not tier list generally. Yeah, that's not fair to be like, is this one of the best performances? Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Okay. We're good. I'll also see every movie of everyone in it. Um I'm gonna put Matt Damon as like a B plus for me.
SPEAKER_01We're doing tiers. It's A through F. I'll put him in. Okay, so top of B performance? Top of B. Top of B. I'm gonna go S because I kinda he was kind of my favorite guy in the movie. I mean, he is the guy of the movie.
SPEAKER_00He's a button.
SPEAKER_01But I think he did a really good job.
SPEAKER_00I okay, I think he did a really good job with what he was given. I just don't think he was given enough. He was a very like flat character for me. And this is this will get into the book discussion, but uh like Odysseus is a very multifaceted, he's a trickster, he's a prankster, he's funny, he's flirty. He's an athlete. He's an athlete. Watch me throw this discus. Uh but in in this movie, he was either just fighting or sad. And I didn't I didn't love it.
SPEAKER_01It is wild to go from reading the book with just like the king of charisma, wits and trickster, to sad, brooding old man who really misses his wife. Um I think I just lie because I really did think the script was pretty weak. Yeah. And he kind of turned lemons into lemonade a little bit. Because there were some other people who choked on some of these horrible lines.
SPEAKER_00And I could bump them into my A tier, like an A- for me, and we could compromise between B and S.
SPEAKER_01Next up, straight from the Sarastatham Spectrum. Give me Tommy Holland.
SPEAKER_00Where are you putting him? Fine. He was fine. He wasn't great. I didn't think he like actually showed a lot of emotion in the scenes where he's arguing with his mom. B. He's a B. I tend to agree.
SPEAKER_01I don't but it was such a weird contrast in the scenes with Penelope because she, by my count, was grossly overacting. And he was perhaps underacting. And it was just like weird having her like scream and spit all over the place, and then him be like, but mom. Like I just think it the the connection of those two modes of acting was really strange to me. Yeah. And made them both look a little worse.
SPEAKER_00I do think the last third, like the last act, he did very well. So most of my criticism is actually more for the beginning. And it's not about him being like a whiny kid, because that's what he is. But yeah, from like the Anne Hathaway mom chats to the temple fight scene, I didn't like him, but I I kind of liked him on either end of it.
SPEAKER_01I sort of I think I'm warmer on him than you, because I took like a little bit of his flatness and whatever as like he's a young kid, but he really is doing his best to be mature in this kind of shitty circumstance, like deal with the suitors. He like really does control his temper around the suitors, too. True. He doesn't. Which I thought was like pretty impressive for someone of that age. Um, so I don't know. I liked him. I thought I don't know, some of the better story moments for me were like watching him just try to navigate that. I it's like a thing that I wasn't expecting to enjoy that I kind of enjoyed.
SPEAKER_00I I would say especially that's cool to hear from you because I feel like you didn't those are the segments you didn't enjoy in the book. Hard skim. Yeah. And so for him to actually like make that enjoyable in the movie, that's a that's a big win for you.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Uh let's let's speed up here. Uh Ann Hathaway as Penelope. Dude, she's she she was doing too much, man. She was not doing that.
SPEAKER_00She's doing way too much. That's a D for me. Yeah, C.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Just chill a little. Honestly, she wasn't in the movie a tremendous amount. Like, um, and I just I think it's really tough to separate script from performance, do? Like, if they're telling her, like, hey, I need you to scream and cry and spit on your son here, she's gonna do that. Like, um whatever. Okay. Athena herself, Zendaya. F. What could she get in that? She barely has a diamond.
SPEAKER_00That's the point. You're rating the character in F. I am, I obviously am rating the character. Yeah, I'm rating the script in F with its use of Athena.
SPEAKER_01Uh you know what line I can't forget, and I don't know why. When they're on the Cyclops Island, Matt Damon sees a sheep and he says, Sheep traveling fox. Let's follow. Who wrote this? What was that delivery? Can we pause to discuss? Did the American accents and modern modern diction bother you at all? No, I didn't care. I'm a self-hating American. I I think I I it's an approach. I mean then I need my Greeks to be British.
SPEAKER_00That's what I learned. Well, you what do you need them to wear all the right armor and stuff too? I don't care about any of that, to be honest.
SPEAKER_01No, I love the fake armor. Are you kidding me? Agamemnon looking like a goddamn Avenger? Agamemnon looked sick. Agamemnon canonically eight feet tall, 450 pounds.
SPEAKER_00No, Zendaya got one line in the movie. Like she just stared mournfully at Odysseus.
SPEAKER_01I'm excited to talk about Athena in the sort of uh book-to-movie comparison. Just as a way of discussing gotch generally. All right, let's bang out the last few. Uh Robert Pattinson is Antonus. S.
unknownS.
SPEAKER_01I hated him.
SPEAKER_00I hated his ass. Yeah. No, that's the point. He did such a good job of it. I know he did it. He congrats. He was uh he's an easy. I feel like he's the locked-in S for everyone who watched the movie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he he was kind of a star. I mean he's the actor for generation. You've been on this for a while, right? I've been on this for years. Yeah. Did you hear this that he was the only guy who asked for the script? I mean, how do some of the things? Like, yeah, okay, Chris, I'll be in your movie. Um any other actors you want to throw on here? I feel like we covered the case. Elliot Page, Sanan C. Yeah, I'd go like I'd go solid D. Like slightly awkward performance, but yeah. Interesting addition like to the film. Um yeah, like kind of a new character arc compared to the book. And just like being in the opening scene, which was a really cool way to start the film with like the horse buried in the sand. I actually thought that was an awesome opener. But it was like instantly iconic visual there.
SPEAKER_00Um Charlize Thuron.
SPEAKER_01That's that's an F for me, dude. You didn't you didn't like her? I thought she was terrible. She was pretty she was pretty cute though. No, no, no, no, no. She's looking like a little Michael Jackson-y at this point, man. Yeah. What happened to Aging Grace? What happened to mellowing with age? Oh, yeah. What happened to not settling your nose down to the tiniest piece of cartilage?
SPEAKER_00It is a little nub, man. That was shocking. That's sad. You need those to smell. She's gonna turn into Baltimore. God damn. You need those to do cocaine in Hollywood. Well, I hope she's doing good. Uh she's doing good. I actually I actually liked her. Um I thought it was total totally fine by me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I can understand your F. Previewed before the show, but I think I do like some of the changes that they made, like you know, consolidating storylines with Calypso and Lotus Eaters. So we'll get there. Um Okay. I think that was all the main that's all the main guys. Uh oh, Argo the Dog. Oh. Yes. Yeah, yes. I was really expecting Argo the Dog to not be in the book. But he was. He's totally in the book. He was totally in the book. I thought that was a normal original.
SPEAKER_00It's a shot for sure.
SPEAKER_01Should have been a cat, but alas.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, we're we're pretty much on online with all that. There were some some banger performances, and um I think honestly, good actors with bad scripts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. We're not here for the script though. Come on. Okay. Do you want to step through the events of the Odyssey or do you want to approach this a different way?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we could just go island hopping. Yeah, we can go like main points of the books that we we thought like. I'm kind of interested to talk about some of the key differences between book and movie and how I felt about them. That's that's my big goal for it. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Then do you mind if we do the actual Odyssey as opposed to uh lingering with Telemachus for a really long amount of time?
SPEAKER_00I think okay, before we do though, I do think one of the biggest things for me in books like one through five, which is kind of like one through four, which is kind of like. Yeah, is just the use of the gods. Like a huge decision by Nolan to not put I mean he has Zendaya's Athena, but there's no other mention or caricature of the gods versus the book where it's like we're getting scenes with Hermes negotiating, like Zeus arguing, like we've got a council.
SPEAKER_01For the folks who just saw the movie and haven't read it, the book begins with like a council of the gods and Athena like making her case to everyone else, saying, like, hey, there's this wonderful, handsome man who's good at discus, and uh he's trapped by Calypso, and uh he suffered enough. We gotta go help him. And Athena is just all throughout this story. Yeah. Like there's very little that happens that doesn't have her fingerprints on it in some way. Like she even goes down, like right after they decide to help Odysseus and goes and tells Telemachus, like, hey, your dad's probably alive. You should go investigate. Um, which leads me to a question I want to ask before I uh forget. They're gods, why don't they just fucking help him, man? Why does it always have to be some cryptic weird bullshit where they give him a scarf and make him swim and then tell him to go do a prophecy? Why can't they just help him? And why can't they just tell Telemachus, like, hey, your dad's definitely good, he's right here, um, and he'll be back you know as soon as he can, barring uh more Poseidon stuff. I would I disagree with that take a lot. They help pretty directly.
SPEAKER_00There are times. But it's never like, and I sent a giant bird and flew him home. Sure, because they're they want entertainment. Gods are bored. They sit up there and they look at the follies of men and they get excited when somebody is interesting. And that's the whole point of the council is like, yo, Poseidon's being a little bitch, this Odysseus guy is pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01Poseidon ain't home right now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So like let's mess around. But I think there's also a caste system within the order of the gods, right? Like Zeus and Poseidon are the daddies, and you know Athena and Hermes can only do so much lest they incur the wrath of the major gods. So they have to, you know, put it in Odysseus's hands to control his own fate to a certain point.
SPEAKER_01Um to those who have not read the book, how would you characterize the gods in the context of the Odyssey? Petty, vindictive little bitches. Meddlesome, nasty sense of humor. Yeah. And you know what they love more than anything? A good burned thigh bone. Yes, they love sacrifice. As compared to every other book I've read, this by far has the most burned thigh bones. That's like, here's my question. And for context, if you haven't read the book, that's the that's the good sacrifice, baby. You get a thigh bone all wrapped up in fat and you burn it. Gods the gods go nuts for that. It's like they're catnip. Um, what are the gods like sacrifices of thigh bones or really anything else? I think I think they just are greedy. Just power trip? You're like, Yeah, man, hey, go do some stupid shit for me, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's weird because in the movie, the only sacrifice they do is for the underworld where they bleed out to calves, I guess. Uh I can't remember if I can't remember. Sheeps. I said they were sheeps. But in the book, every chapter has a multi-page sacrifice ritual, and it is incredibly important before you ever get on a ship that you kill at least a dozen animals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and like a bunch of bad shit happens to characters throughout the story for either sacrificing wrongly or not sacrificing enough or at all. Um, it's a big, yeah, it's gotta be on your checklist before you travel anywhere.
SPEAKER_00It's an upvote for a god. They want popularity, they want favor, you know? So hey, do a cartwheel for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Thank you. Hey, you didn't do your cartwheel.
SPEAKER_00I was like, I'm gonna slip. You wouldn't do that for Ares, that little bit. You did a cartwheel for Helios, but not for me. Oh my god, smite. But also the god gossip in the book is so good, like when Ares and Aphrodite sleep together and Hephaestus' forge when he's gone.
SPEAKER_01And is it is it Circe or Calypso through who throws an absolute hissy fit and is like the male gods get to fuck mortals all the time, but I fuck one mortal and everyone goes nuts. Calypso was a very valid point. Yeah. Look at that. John Homer. John Homer understands the play to women. It's a commentary on sexism more than anything.
SPEAKER_00I'll I'll actually pick that up and say one of the things I was disappointed with with Nolan's adaptation is that the women are very one-dimensional uh versus the book. Generally, they're more scheming and independent and funny. And in in the movie, they're just either angry or like witches.
SPEAKER_01Delivering the loudest scream ever out of the loudest scream ever put to film. Uh thank you, La Pizza.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I thought the depiction of Helen was actually like the best of anyone, because she just at least had a personality. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the like short montage that they did um was very interesting. Yeah. Um, I do not know what how we got here. We were talking about the gods.
SPEAKER_00The gods, because there's so much in the first few books uh versus how the movie starts off.
SPEAKER_01Um so I feel like we just went on about how they are in the book. What did you think about the depiction of the gods in the movie? Because I feel like the signature line is Sindaia's Athena saying, like, the gods, like the gods are everywhere, like you know, that when you see the waves or the lightning or whatever, those are the gods. Um, which, you know, has an obvious appeal to like a modern audience, but what do you think as an adaptation choice?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Yeah, I I mean I think he tied it to hospitality and Zeus's law, like j more generally. Like, this guy loves hospitality. Yeah. I mean it's the assumption. It's the assumption that every beggar could be a god in disguise, which is why the rule is like to treat beggars with hospitality.
SPEAKER_01Which I thought was a very cynical permutation of the golden rule. Right. It's like people because they're people and they they're just like you.
SPEAKER_00They could be a god. It's like once you know they're not a god, fuck them up. It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01Spank them. Yeah. Throw them out, make them sleep on the grass.
SPEAKER_00Um so you know, they they kind of alluded to to that. Um, I was definitely disappointed because I think Athena does the best in the book of always taking the form of somebody else and kind of like nudging the story along. And they never did it in the movie. Like she could have been someone.
SPEAKER_01All the directors, yeah, he loves trickery and weird time shift. Like having like a shape-shifting god could have been so interesting. Right.
SPEAKER_00Um even just to use for mentor as an example. So in the book, mentor, the character is Athena in disguise, and she's the one who pushes Telemachus to go, you know, get the truth about his father. And in the movie, he's just a dude with a sword.
SPEAKER_01What if we made Athena in disguise a sparring partner who doesn't speak? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I was really surprised there wasn't some sort of interesting, you know, yeah, disguise or like witchy sequence. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I could imagine, like, clearly he came in with this idea of Xenia and Zeus's law, and he wanted to say something about war. And I think so many of the events in the book are precipitated by the whims of the petty gods that it might have been hard to make those two things coexist. Um, I just don't know how you square that circle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, there's also the truth that like the gods were totally fine with war. And you know who else was totally fine with war? Was Odysseus in the book. Like Odysseus cries in the book because his friends died and he's tired of being on the road. He does not cry.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01He misses that.
SPEAKER_00What was the quote? After dragging their wives from the city with a great deal of booty as well. It's like his first brag when he tells his.
SPEAKER_01I loved it. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Um, does that cover the gods more or less? Other than uh, what is he, Poseidon Earthshaker? Yes. That's what he's going by. He's a motherfucker, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, dude. He's a really vindictive god. And we don't really get a lot of his actual personality in the book. Like he doesn't speak a lot like some of the other gods, but um, yeah, no, he doesn't give up a grudge whatsoever.
SPEAKER_01High up in the pantheon and really is down to dish out some pain to mortals.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. Well, I guess, okay, there's the one thing I thought was interesting is that Nolan kind of makes the arguments, um, was it post-Calypso that he just needs to prostrate himself in front of the gods. He needs to give himself to Poseidon fully. Yeah. And that's going to be enough to kind of reset his fortune. I don't know. What do you think of that take? Because it's not really how it works in in the book and also in like Greek mythology.
SPEAKER_01No, it's not, because the gods are irrational and vindictive. Like it's just it simply does not work that way. And I think in the somewhat incendiary Emily Wilson review of the film, she does talk about like the film kind of wants to have it both ways, where it like both praises Odysseus for kind of thumbing his nose at the gods, but then also like says that's hubris in a way. Right. And I don't know. Her her review, she by the way, she's one of the like notable kind of modern translators of the poem. There's a lot to be said about her review, and it was maybe a bit mean that said Chris Fernellan could take it to the tune of the billion dollars she just made. Um but I did tend to agree with that take. Um about just like it sort of wasn't clear about what it what it means to either succumb to the gods or say fuck them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we'll get into some of the critiques and criticism of of the film generally. Um, she certainly damned it with faint praise, was the way that I read the entire thing. Like it certainly made an impression. I'm I would have been embarrassed to read. But at no point does she say she didn't enjoy it. That's the funny thing. She's like, My kids had fun and I was I made a big impression and like blah blah blah. Like she never flat out says I didn't like this movie.
SPEAKER_01It's like she went through she's probably a mean person because you can tell she had to go through some sort of HR training. They're like, hey, when you're giving feedback to your students, start with something nice. Don't just lead with this was ass. That's how the review starts with like I took my kids. We had a really good time. Anyways, worst script I've ever read. This guy doesn't understand the Odyssey. Um you do you, Emily Wilson. That rocked. I had a great time reading it. Yeah. And again, Chris can take it.
SPEAKER_00Chris can take it. Well, get take us into the pull by the horns.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I want to talk about the fucking cyclops. Let's go. We'll get to Calypso later. I don't care. Get into the cyclops, baby. Okay. Fuck yeah. Um, I don't even know why this is the question I'm asking. I'm gonna ask it. Book or movie version better. John Goodman, best cyclops. He is unfortunately the best cyclops. What he did to the Soggy Bottom boys, I will never forget.
SPEAKER_00Also, I'm gonna say this at some point. That's my favorite Odyssey adaptation, and it always will be. Oh brother, where art thou, if anybody doesn't know what we're talking about. It's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01My big one has just been saying that the Lego movie is better than the Odyssey, which I genuinely believe, but people don't think that I do. It's okay. Everything is awesome. Everything is awesome when you're part of the Odysseus.
SPEAKER_00Um, but genuinely, the the book okay, they're totally different for me. Um they're they're so they're dramatically different. I was like trying to make some comparison. Okay, I'll tell you what I liked about each, maybe, prefacing that the book was my favorite. In the book, it's a fun debate. It's like a counter to Odysseus's greed. Yeah. He's like, I'm here for gifts and Zeus's hospitality. Cyclops is like, fuck you, I'll eat you last.
SPEAKER_01And your gift to me is I'm eating your men. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And of course, you get the classic, who's hurting you? No one, because Odyssey, yeah, Odysseus is a little prankster. Yeah. So I think it was for me, it was like a comedic scene in the Odyssey. Like I was laughing, it was funny, it was a fun read. And then in the movie, it is genuinely terrifying. Like it is screaming and guttural noises, and like I think I might be a crazy person.
SPEAKER_01I sort of found it a little comedic in the movie. I think too like I truly just think the way the Cyclops looked with his like where his penis should have been was blurred out, and he was like, maybe cute at times, and they're hiding with all these sheep, and they put fucking grass on their back. It like I think of all their adventures, this one got closest to the tone of the poem for where it was truly frightening. Like, I think it was an amazing action sequence, but there was something about it. I was like, this is insane. I'm having a great time.
SPEAKER_00Like oh, I had a great it was pure edge of your seat, like cinema.
SPEAKER_01Um the world's loudest scream before the pizza's scream an hour later, or whatever that was.
SPEAKER_00Um I I think he kind of blew it with a couple small choice, like he didn't fully commit because he has the one part where like the Cyclops speaks, but it's just gibberish and like I know that's such an interesting change. Yeah, and then Odysseus at the end does taunt him, but it doesn't make as much sense because he just shoots an arrow at his eye and he already escaped versus the book. Like he's taunting the shit out of the city.
SPEAKER_01Can you run for for the people who only saw the movie? Can you run us through uh again, the smartest man in the universe, Odysseus, and what he does is they're sailing away?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So first of all, he puts himself in this cave of his uh totally of his own making. They go, they steal some cheese, they steal some sheep, and they're like, hey, should we just like get out of here? And he's like, No, do you think if we stay, they're gonna give us nicer presents? So that's why he's in the cave, first of all. Juices' love, my friend. No, literally, it's like juice as law.
SPEAKER_01Wait, can I add one quick note on the film? What the fuck was up with Matt Damon getting a finger full of cheese from the cave? You gotta dip that was disgusting. Just a stack of cheese hanging. He's like, they're making cheese. Yummy. That was truly appalling.
SPEAKER_00One of the grossest moments of the movie. Okay, carry on. It's also gross because, like, you're in a dark cave with a soggy bag full of God knows what. You're just gonna taste test it.
SPEAKER_01Holy shit, there's fresh cheese in there.
SPEAKER_00But anyway, the book is it's a very funny scene because he debates with the cyclops, who's kind of keeping them hostage, but it's very verbal, sparring. And then they blind him. The cyclops says, Who are you that blinded me? And he says, I'm no one. And though when the cyclops asks for help from his neighbors, he says, No one is hurting me. And it's very funny. Because they're like, then you're fine. Can't I add one book note?
SPEAKER_01Uh shockingly gory description by John Homer of the blinding. Yeah. They get this, like, you know, a staff, I think it's his staff, and they break it. It's like green wood, so it takes forever to get it hot. And they have a drill that they put into it so that they can corkscrew the hot staff into his eye, and there's like gushing blood. And I just I didn't think a text from 7th, 8th century BCE would have gushing blood in that way. But it was really nasty.
SPEAKER_00That's one of the top two depictions. Obviously, the other is when Odysseus crashes against a rock face and it's like like an octopus tentacle scraped his skin away. I was like, oh my god, Homer. Fascinating. But anyway, yeah, so they're equally like kind of gory sequences, actually. I thought the movie made it very intense and violent. Um just completely different interpretations of how it goes down, though. So each thing.
SPEAKER_01They also um when they escape in the film, they put like kind of rushes or hay or something on their back so that when he's counting the sheep as they go, they feel like sheep. In the book, um, Odysseus clings to the underside of a ram, kind of buries himself in the wool. And uh, I think Nolan was just a fucking coward for not having Matt Damon ride a giant sheep upside down.
SPEAKER_00I think it's like Americans could never comprehend how big a sheep was in ancient Greece.
SPEAKER_01People don't know that they had dinosaur-sized sheep back then, and we want it. Yeah. Um but no, very fun. Very fun. Yeah, and yes, the giant fuck you to Cyclops, who is apparently large enough to throw off a piece of a mountain at your boat. Very stupid by Odysseus, but shit, man. We're on to the next one. Yeah. What is the next one? Is it Lotus Cedars?
SPEAKER_00Well, we actually skip uh Nausica and the Phaikian in the in the movie. But that's actually before Cyclops.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so should we I guess we should add a note for movie-only people. The book, I would say, the book. I'm gonna keep saying the book because it's just saying the poem sounds weird to me, and I I feel like I was reading a book. Um in a way I was. Uh begins with like the Telemachus sequence, I think pretty similar to what you saw in the film. Um and I think as in the film, Odysseus, when the story starts, is with Calypso. Um due to intervention of the gods, he's able to escape Calypso, and he ends up on an island with Nausicaa. Not in the film, but ultimately he's taken in by Nausicaa and her father, and these are the people who he tells the story of the Odyssey too. So that's kind of the framing device in the context of the poem is these people Nausica.
SPEAKER_00And narratively, he does start with Calypso kind of first, and then after prodding, tells the full story. So you know that does feel kind of accurate to the movie, but we do kind of miss out. It I understand why he didn't include the sequence because it's like pretty fun and lighthearted.
SPEAKER_01It's like nature's the silliest island of all of the islands. Okay. So okay, this is a section for the uh non-book readers, because I think we have to just go through Noska now. So he escapes Calypso, washes up um completely a la mod, baby. He's got no clothes on. He puts a fig leaf over his uh gonads and approaches a beautiful young woman, which I'm told you're not supposed to do in the workplace. Such a charmer. I know, I know. Why is he shy? I feel like he shouldn't be shy after all he's been through, but at least for her benefit.
SPEAKER_00This is where, like, man, you gotta have some attitude. Like, he's naked and disgusting, and he's just like, You're a very beautiful woman. Like, that's as pretty much as open. And it works. And she's like, Oh man, I wish that I was marrying you today instead of the guy I'm being.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because the woman Naska, you meet Nosca, the Valley of the Wind, shout out. Um, yeah, she's like a a I'm gonna call her a princess. I know that word does not make sense, but I think it's probably right to think about it that way. Um yeah, her wedding day is up next, and I think she probably feels a little weird about meeting a a bedraggled but also godlike hot naked guy on the beach. Um and they're playing, I think what really is soccer, they get they kick a ball into a stream and Odysseus gets it, and uh that's their meat cute. It's so cute. Um It's wild. Is this the island where Athena makes him magically tall and hot?
SPEAKER_00It's one of them. He sh first she puts like a fog around him so he can kind of nakedly walk into court and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um okay. I'm gonna okay, I'm gonna briefly narrate us to the to to the Olympics. Good. So that we so that we're clear. Anyways, he talks to Nasuka, she gives him some kind of vague directions and says, like, hey, we live up in this cool house. Um come talk to my dad but and my mom and you know, supplicate to them, tell them your stories, and we'll take you in and treat you good. Um he does that. The gods help him out, they disguise him in a fog, and eventually he's able to talk to Nasuka's parents, and he starts relaying his tail. But very importantly, before he's gonna leave their island, they decide to have feats of strength.
SPEAKER_00In the reasoning, I thought was hilarious. They're like, when you go home, we want you to tell people how cool you are.
SPEAKER_01Guys, I escaped the Cyclops, I escaped Circe. But let me tell you, the Nausea people are fucking fast. You would not believe how fast they were. Yeah. Normal guys, but much faster. Um, so the the big Hancho, Nausea's dad, he has a bunch of sons, just like big, he has large sons. All good at different sports. One is sick at discus, one's great at wrestling, boxing, whatever. They come to Odysseus, like, hey buddy, you're tall and hot. They also um comment on how nice his calves are, which I appreciate. Um, they're like, You gotta be good at some sports, man. Not as good as us, but you know, show us something and uh show something he does.
SPEAKER_00He throws a discus further than anyone's thrown a discus on that island before, flexes his muscles, calls the guy a handsome, empty-headed fool. And they fucking love this, by the way. This goes over it's gangbusters. This guy's incredible.
SPEAKER_01I know that there's no way to make this make any sense in the movie, but goddamn, having like buff Tad Bod Matt Damon Huckadiscus, it would have been unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and this is why my pitch is for a funny rom-com version of the ops scene. The scene would be perfect for. Jeff Goldblum throwing a discus, flirting with the princess.
SPEAKER_01They're running pretty far, right? You might want to wait and see. I think what we're trying to convey here is that the tone of the Odyssey, the poem, is diametrically opposed to the tone of the Odyssey, the film.
SPEAKER_00Colors, flirting, sex, cool scenery. It's funny.
SPEAKER_01There's drama, but like it's wacky. It's like more it's way more Gulliver's Travels than it is The Odyssey 2026 by Christopher Nolan.
SPEAKER_00And to be fair, this is more of the episodes of the Odyssey versus the return to Ithaca, which is I thought actually pretty true to the movie. And we'll we'll get there for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that yeah. Another thing that sort of surprised me how accurate the, you know, how closely the movie followed the poem and the ending. Okay, Justica, even though I loved it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Let's hit a couple new other of the episode highlights.
SPEAKER_01Um You want to do a You want to do a draft?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We like a draft. You go, because I feel like I picked the first style.
SPEAKER_00I'm going to start with Aeoli Island full of incest. Well, this island got two pages.
SPEAKER_01Um it got two lines. I got two lines. Oh, okay. Okay.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Sorry.
SPEAKER_00I we because I was thinking, I was like, this was barely in this, right? Yeah. No, he's like, and then we we went to Aeoli Island where everybody married their sister and brother.
SPEAKER_01Twelve sons, twelve daughters, they all banged. And we left.
SPEAKER_00That place wasn't very chilling.
SPEAKER_01We got the fuck out of there. Next. Okay. Um, okay. I think in let's keep the theme of places we ain't going to talk about that much. A lot was made about the Lice Dragonians, whatever the fuck they are, how short that was in the film. Well, folks, I'm here to tell you it's really short in the book, too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I actually thought this was my favorite like scene-for-seen shot. It's it's a little different the way they enter in the book. It's like a little bit of a book. They go up and they they talk to a print the princess.
SPEAKER_01They remark on how ugly the queen is, which I thought, you know, it's a little unnecessary. She's uh 400 feet tall, so you're probably not going to find her attractive.
SPEAKER_00And again, they they are denied the hospitality of Zeus and are summarily eaten by the giant people.
SPEAKER_01And uh You know, there's no symmetry because I think they did just fine for you know breaking Zeus's law. Yeah. So what do you think was going through Christopher Nolan's head? He's reading the poem, he's trying to write this script, and he's like, what if I had a kid just scream at the top of his lungs instead of uh doing what's in the poem?
SPEAKER_00I kind of loved it, man, because like we have enough palace scenes with the whole Telemachus at home and Ithaca stuff going on. Like we didn't need that, and we didn't need some debate. Just have this frequently screaming child fight scene. Get the fuck out of there. It captures the anxiety of Odysseus telling the story in the book of just like, yeah, and then they wrecked the fuck out of all of our ships. Like these guys destroyed us. Yeah. It's more people died with the Lyce Dragonians than like in any other part of the book.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, that's that's correct. Yeah, his fleet was completely decimated. Um and that's also just one of the weird things about reading something from so long ago is how quickly um the decimation of his fleet can be described. Yeah. It's like no attention is lavished on that, but like you get discriptions of feasts for pages on end. Or how about the one guy?
SPEAKER_00How about the one guy who took a header off of Cersei's hut and they have to literally go back to his her island and bury him?
unknownJesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00So the one guy, you know, they have a whole carve-out section for versus these 80s sailors who got killed by freakish giant babies.
SPEAKER_01This is definitely like pre-people really studying narrative structure. You could tell Save the Cat hadn't been written. It's just not a tight 90-minute screenplay.
SPEAKER_00Are you having fun with the thrilling part of the story? Odysseus says, I'm tired. I don't want to tell this anymore. Is that is that a fun way to end this chapter?
SPEAKER_01This is my story about Odysseus's journey. I'm gonna start with half of the book being about his son figuring out where he is and not succeeding.
SPEAKER_00Would you like me to describe how many qubits should be in this sacrifice field?
SPEAKER_01It really is a strange thing, man. I think the reasons for this are lost to time. Yeah. Anyway, I guess. Okay. Uh you're up next. Next island, baby. We're going to Cersei Island. I know. Yeah, we have to do Cersei. Okay. This is also roughly in chronological order of the book. I know. I know it is. Uh, ladies and gentlemen. Um, Christopher Nolan was not ready for a sexy Cersei. He's too chaste, he's too English. He can't do it. I mean, in fact, there's zero sex anywhere in this book or in the movie. So Okay. So in the in the film, she's an old crone who does backwoods plastic surgery on men to turn them into pigs, which was gross.
SPEAKER_00That was a really cool scene. I thought that was fascinating and really well done. It was horrible and really good. Yeah. I hate it. Body horror at its finest. Yeah, just good old-fashioned body horror. And eating the innards, man. Like I was, oh, that was just really cool.
SPEAKER_01Oh, dude, no. It was just like they were eating a disgusting bowl of minuto. All-type. Yep. Give me the all-tripe menudo. Thank you. Um, yeah, that was so especially like me, because you know how I hate mouth sounds. I'm really sensitive to eating noises. That at um rock concert volumes was really unpleasant for me. So in the book, like, I don't know. I think the lead up is fairly similar, except one, Circe is stunning. And she's uh she's the uh goddess of quote, the beautiful braids. I don't know. She's got good looking braids. Um but it's more or less similar. Like the guys get turned into pigs, Odysseus was back, he another thing, the a god tells him that his men were turned into pigs. It's not a good thing.
SPEAKER_00I actually think an important part is his crew mut mutinies in the movie. Oh, yeah. What yeah. And they don't, they certainly don't in the book. There's no mention of it. There's one guy who doesn't want to go back to Cersei's hut after he saw what happened.
SPEAKER_01Can I can I well actually you? Yeah. I think that was meant to cover up for the uh the bag of winds mutiny. Uh okay, fair enough. I think we'll maybe we'll get to that in a future island if we do the bag of the winds.
SPEAKER_00It's kind of I I actually think it's just a throwaway. We might as well talk about it now. At a certain point, Odysseus gets a gift, which is a bag of winds that he's not supposed to open. His crew defies him, opens it while he's sleeping. It fucks everything up. He drifts back to the shore.
SPEAKER_01They think that he has gold in the bag of winds, and then he's brought home like spoils from the war, and they're not going to get any of it. Um they were like on the shores of Ithaca when this happens, by the way. They said they're so close they could see the fires like they were home, and this is early in the Odyssey, and his dumb fuck friends open the bag of winds, sends them all the way back to the island where they got the bag of winds. They go in to talk to Hey, do you have any more bags of winds? They're like, get the hell out. And they're like, uh, you must be cursed if that didn't work. Uh no, thank you. Goodbye. Um, good luck with the uh six-headed monster. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So to be fair, this is Nolan combining a couple episodes together, which I thought was actually it's perfectly creative and cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think pretty tidy that a lot of that was done. Okay, so here's the here's the important thing about Cersei. Odysseus shows up and Cersei says, My bad, I'll fix him. However, what if we fucked right now? And Odysseus, kind man that he is, again, dying to get home to Penelope, says, I would never go to bed with you unless you promise not to hurt me. And she says, I will not hurt you, and then they fuck. And he's like, Should we pop a little Molly first?
SPEAKER_00How about it though?
SPEAKER_01Hermes gave me some drugs. Um, and he does that for a year. Let's let's be clear. Odysseus, objectively a bad guy. And no, he is not Matt Damon riddled with grief. He's out here fucking goddesses with beautiful braids while his men are big.
SPEAKER_00Until his men are like, yo, you think we should maybe head out soon? Um kind of like it here though. Nice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There's Odysseus is really just banging his way across the Mediterranean. I think that's that's kind of the gist of the story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, I think I I don't there's not too many other islands hopping. We've got Hades Town. Uh somebody should have written down the dead summoning plot because in the book it's like a three-page rid of like set of oral instructions that are very specific.
SPEAKER_01Again, another thing that got more lines than the than the destruction of his fleet was how to summon people from the underworld.
SPEAKER_00Hey, talk about a skimmer of a a chapter, the endless parade of names that I didn't care about that he talks to in the underworld, which I think he spent a year there also just talking to people.
SPEAKER_01It's it's the time stuff just like made so little sense to me that I just had to ignore it. It's like if I think about them being there for a year, it's just the whole story unravels.
SPEAKER_00For me, it started to make sense because it's like this is the cameo section of a really long bard tale where you throw in all the updates to all the other famous characters in like literature at the time. It's like you remember Achilles? Yeah, this is what happened to him. Like, you remember this guy from that other story? He's here too. Like, and I'm like, okay, this makes sense for an oral storytelling tradition at the time or something. It's like the gossip rag at the end of the newspaper, you know. Got a crazy revelation.
SPEAKER_01Achilles who is dead wishes he was not dead. But uh really unfun to read from my perspective. No, that was that's the I'm not I'm gonna keep it a buck with you because John Homer's dead and he's not gonna hear this. Two-thirds of this poem are slog for me. The third that was just Odyssey was banging. That's that's that's the most fun I have for sure.
SPEAKER_00The beginning and the end are a little skippable. I hate to say it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, on it like if you're curious about the Odyssey, this is pure sacrilege, but again, I I just don't care that much. If you just it's 24 books, chapters, whatever you want to call them. Um if you just look up which ones are just his narration of the Odyssey, that's like a tight 80 to 100 pages.
SPEAKER_00It's six to twelve, basically.
SPEAKER_01I would highly recommend those. Like if you're not digging the Telemachus stuff, just read the Odyssey. Like it's just that section is is wonderful. And I think there's a reason that what history has remembered is that section of the poem.
SPEAKER_00Right. And a a couple highlights from him shooting an arrow at the ends. But if yeah, if you want to understand a lot of pop culture references, modern literature references, character names, like that's the section to go for, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's really fun. Um so Hades, uh, we did the bag of the winds. Um I think we've got Calypso. I think we yeah. I guess just Lotus Cedars, I don't think there's a tremendous amount to say. No. Um Calypso. So I I I think reasonably similar to the film. Um she well does she successfully seduce Odysseus? That's my question to you. So no. There's some troubling stuff that's happening with her and Odysseus, I would say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, she w she is offering Odysseus immortality, she wants him to stay. She's also like kind of using him to get back at the gods, who in her opinion get to sleep around with whoever they want, so why can't she? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01There's yeah. And there's a horrible line about like how they've been going to bed and it says like her willing, him unwilling. It's like, oh man. Yeah. Though it's maybe undercut by like some stuff later where he seems to be quite willingly going, I don't know. I don't know. There's a complicated and bad dynamic, I think, going on here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And Nolan explains it away in his version by saying, Well, Odysseus was high the whole time on Lotus. And so he he doesn't even remember home. I think it's a cop-out, right? Because this is one of like, I think the larger questions about the whole the whole thing is like, you know, are Odysseus and Penelope right for each other? Is he like really a good man? Is he faithful? Like, because he this whole quest is to get home to his wife, but he could have left Calypso. Like he's there for seven years, remembering his wife is like a short couple islands away.
SPEAKER_01I mean, if you j just think about the strangeness of Odysseus and Penelope's reunion in the film, had he banged a hot Cersei for a year. Like it obviously makes sense why Christopher Nolan cut that, but like the figure of Odysseus as penned by John Homer is a motherfucker. Like he's not a it all and let's hey, let's not let Calypso off. Awful. And she she has a horrible line for just like, hey, by the way, your wife is fucking old now. Yeah. And even if she weren't old, look at me, man. Yeah. She don't got a body like this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Which is where I I just think it fell short in the movie for me, where she's just like really regretful and feels bad and like it's trying to help him. That's just not how it went at all. Like the gods had to intervene.
SPEAKER_01I could have done with a a spiteful, fucked up, weird calypso. Yeah. Um, yeah, interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Also, should Odysseus have been hotter. I So this is where like I I think you had to make a choice as a filmmaker because in the book, Athena is always either making him hot or old. Like, so no one's like, I can't I can't do that, man.
SPEAKER_01Like, come on. That'd be great if it was like played by two characters. It's like Sarian McKellen and that guy from Bridgerton season one.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Like that would have been so I'm like, I have no problem with with picking a middle ground Matt Damon whose uh female uh stunt doubles biceps are the envy of many a man. I don't know about this. You've got a jacked jacked female bite or stunt double? His stunt double's a lady, and there's all the uh there's some funny like kind of right-wing discourse online about like, yeah, it's good to see like a jacked guy on on the screen, and it's like those are close-ups of her biceps, my friend. Incorrect.
SPEAKER_01Some jacked ladies out there. Um also a a quick side note. John Homer was a very a very vain kind of skin deep man. Yeah. Um not a not a character goes by without uh their hotness being commented upon. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Why is our why is owl eyes, Athena, see hot or not?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that really is it. And I think the gods just descend from the heavens to bang the hottest of the people. Um yeah. Whatever. It's Greece, man. That's Greece. Or Main, maybe. Calypso, um, fucking I I regret to inform you we must now talk about Telemachus. Yeah, we're back home. Yeah. I listen, this is not a this is not a pothole at all. When Tom Holland was talking to Matt Damon, I was like, that's your dad, dude. How do you not recognize him? The answer is that he's basically never seen his dad. Right. But did me watching the movie know that? No, I did not. I was like, why is this what he's just got a beard and he doesn't know him now? It's driving me crazy. Didn't they have all those photos of him at home? Yeah, what happened, man? They're hanging out.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it is funny that in so in the book, Athena makes him literally an old disfigured beggar, basically. Yeah. And in the movie, he just puts a robe on.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So my point about Tom Holland does apply to Odysseus v. Every other person that he encounters.
SPEAKER_00Yes, his swine herd and Penelope and whoever else. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I, you know, man, I knew how long the movie was before I saw it. But when he got back to Ithaca with 40 minutes remaining, I was like, oh, I think I got the time wrong, surely, and we're not gonna have 40 minutes of this. To be fair, it's 10 books of the Odyssey. Had I known that at the time, I would not have had so many questions. Um yeah. Where okay, what do you even want to say about this?
SPEAKER_00I mean, uh a couple of things for me, like I thought it was pretty faithful from this point on. Like this the beggar stuff happens, throwing the stool, um plotting.
SPEAKER_01There's so many funny details that I were that I did not expect to be in the poem. Yeah. Yeah. Stool throw, crazy. Awesome. Taking all the weapons and putting them upstairs, like hilarious. I thought that was just like a little set piece that they had written. No. But John Homer wrote that one. Yeah. Argos the puppy being there while you're gonna be able to get the puppy, crazy, still there. Um don't make your dog sleep on a dung heap. What the fuck is wrong with you people?
SPEAKER_00I think the only big difference, I mean, there obviously there's some differences. We're not gonna go shot for shot, but the Telemachus and Odysseus fighting together in the temple against the 20 uh bandits was uh just a wild interpretation. The naves and ne'er do wells they sent. Yeah, that was that was in the book, he just sails a different direction.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Makes it home perfectly fine. And there's no other interoperation.
SPEAKER_01That's pure Hollywood baby.
SPEAKER_00Just like we need some sort of. Fuck it. We haven't had a fight in a while. Um, and then this is Robert Pattinson just shining through. I had a blast.
SPEAKER_01Okay, perfect. So my note on RPAT, I don't think RPAT is a I don't think Antonus is like a draft dodger in Homer's Odyssey.
SPEAKER_00So Sanon, the whole Sanon arc is pretty movie only. Um I actually thought was fun. Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, no, I think it's he feels more just like stock. He's the representative suitor in the Odyssey, the book, but like I sort of like that they gave him a little more color. Like we needed someone hateable.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, he's just a little more clever than the average suitor and talks more in the book, you know. So it was good that they had a little bit of a backstory.
SPEAKER_01We have somehow not brought up Odysseus' bow. Yes. Uh, how'd the sound make you feel? Horny. Boing. Oh boing indeed.
SPEAKER_00Boing. Uh I loved it, man. I thought like the first scene where he plugs the bow and the soundtrack kicks in. Fucking hit, man. Like talk about music in a Nolan movie. God, his soundtracks are good.
SPEAKER_01Um, that's another thing that I think got to the tone of the poem. It was like, yeah, the bow making that sound is a little silly. It rocks. That's great. It doesn't matter that it's silly. Um the one thing that bothered me about the bows, did you notice how they were shooting bows? Oh, they kept like fucking holding them low inside. Was that what's up with that? I don't know. I've done no demand.
SPEAKER_00I've done no research if that's how the Greeks actually shot their bows.
SPEAKER_01So I'm I have no idea. Anyone else shoots bows? And I think it'd be really hard to shoot birds out of the air, which Andrew Tate and Tom Holland were doing. The test that Penelope has stringing the bow, that was one of those moments where it's like, God damn it, John Homer, you really did it. That's just that's just just so iconic. And that was one of those things that was like, it's so cool that this story from almost 3,000 years ago feels that good, just like has a moment like just perfect structure. Like it's just great, man. It's so cool.
SPEAKER_00No notes. I totally agree with you. It rocks. Um, and hearing that pluck before he shoots the there's in the other annoying suitor, and I can't remember his name. Yeah. He shoots him right in the throat. That's like, ah, this rocks brutal.
SPEAKER_01Okay. My one complaint about the fight scene. He's they've they've taken out all the weapons except for the axes that they bound together for him to shoot. Why does he start doing the whirlwind with those with those axes? He gets them and just starts spinning like a top, which would be bad for him and probably wouldn't hurt anyone else because he's not spinning fast enough.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. This is where I think it's tough because the book like has Athena basically getting his arrows for him and throwing them back to him, like so that he has unlimited ammo. And it was hard for Nolan, I think, to like how do I realistically have this guy kill a hundred people in a room with like four arrows?
SPEAKER_01And the answer, just do it. Spin it. I don't know. Yeah. It like, yeah, of course, it's a little silly, but I mean, I think the answer is fuck it. He's Odysseus, man. Yeah. Fuck it. This guy's silly. Um, do I think I can't believe we didn't discuss this yet. What did you think about Athena becoming kind of a projection of his own conscience?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We get the scene where she if we're taking it literally, which I think most people are, that she's a woman who was killed in the sack of Troy and becomes the embodiment of Athena to him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, assumedly also an interpretation of like the rejection of Zeus's law, like that they come in and kill an innocent in their own temple after being invited in as a gift, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Um I actually think it works for his message. I don't like it. Like I don't love the message as a whole. I think that what he did using that as a vehicle for it was clever and and made sense. And it also was like a good visual story to tell of just like the the statue being beheaded. And um yeah, no, I I thought it worked fine for what he wanted to do. I just don't like there's no regret in Odysseus' John Homer version. There's no like no uh oopsies, like no.
SPEAKER_01No. He's here to fucking rock out and bang chicks and get home to his wife. Yeah. Um I will say, to move past that stupid remark I just made, um the the whole like gift thing. Okay, so yes, they they trick the Trojans and the horse and blah blah blah, everyone knows. And it seems in the world of the film, that's the great sin of Odysseus. I think like if you want to hear a better articulated version of the point I'm gonna make, like, do check out Emily Wilson's review. But I think this is the thing that was rubbing me when I left the movie theater was for all the shit we hear about Zeus's Law and Xenia, the movie like isn't consistent with the way that it views violence because it seems that the greatest crime was that they tricked the Trojans in war, but then he can go and kill the suitors and it's completely fine. So it's almost like uh it's like a technical mistake. Like they caught him on a foot fault by using a trick, but had he they just barged down the gates and killed the people in the same way, it would have been fine.
SPEAKER_00But I mean, I think there's also the argument to make if you look backwards that like Paris came into the home of like Menelaus or Agonemnon and took Helen. Like whether Helen was a willing participant is like up for debate, but you like took a man's wife away from his home. Like they, you know, if you want to play the blame game all the way back, like nobody is uh no nobody's safe, you know.
SPEAKER_01No, and and like if you're really kind of weighing fault, probably the people who have done the the least harm are the suitors. Sure. They suck, like don't get me wrong, they're like like scrambling power hungry little motherfuckers. Don't like I have no sympathy for them really, but like they're probably relatively low on the list of people who needed to be shot in the throat. Right. Like objectively, they haven't killed anyone. They're just sticks. There's they suck, but like, you know, and I don't know. I just it it if there's some wrinkles that needed to be ironed out, and I think for a movie that was like really staking a lot of its weight on that one point, to have it be so unsure of itself was really fucking weird. And and I think that's what held me back from really liking it as much as some other people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'll I'll actually because Mendelssohn is the um translator whose version that we read for this, he has a fantastic intro and foreword. And I agree a lot with one of the points that he makes, and this is in the same vein of what you're talking about. Like for me, I really think that the tale of Odysseus is like survival at all costs and enjoying life. It's like everything is about live, like staying alive and enjoying life. And like Odysseus has no line he won't cross to stay alive and get home. And he also like when something fun presents itself, he's gonna do it. Like those are the his two guiding principles, and that's pretty much his entire moral code. And to come up with this entire like new set of yeah, like anti-war, anti-violence, um, morals, I I think was it's a choice for sure. It's a it's just a different choice than I think um the book made. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That was that was one of the interesting things about seeing the movie before reading the poem, was I was expecting Nolan's themes to be more latent in the text. And they weren't there as much as I thought that they were going to be. I thought I'd be like, oh, okay, here's the part where that Nolan really latched on to. Well, and the reading he came up with is if you gave a hundred people the poem, I don't know if anyone would would come up with that reading.
SPEAKER_00No. And there's another point we haven't talked about much, but uh this idea of like, are you the same person as when you left? Like in the book, he really has to prove to Penelope, even after killing the suitors, that he is Odysseus, and it like ends up coming down to some not like random lore trivia he knows about an olive tree through their bed, right? Like, and she's like, It's you, but like this whole idea of like you're not the same person as you were when you came back is just flattened in the movie to be like he is the exact same man despite all of these adventures and trials and tribulations and choices, and I'm gonna recognize him immediately because of his soul, like it's the same bird. So it's they're like categorically different choices of interpreting the message of Odysseus.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's a it's just a different character. Yeah, totally who does the same thing. And I think like part of the weirdness that I perceived is like trying to be faithful to the plot while p tacking onto it a new message. Yeah. And that's a really hard thing to do. And I I think he did a pretty credible job of it, but like how do you turn how do you turn banging Cersei for a year into a story of like the horrors of war? And it's just it's a it's a really weird thing.
SPEAKER_00Um again, I want my Jeff Goldblum flirting on all the islands version of this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that would that would be great. The Multi-Python version of this would be awesome, and the Nolan version can be awesome too. But they're just they're different things. Okay. Um, you know what? Hey, hey, Travis, take a load off. I got this. Oh, I'm gonna lead the way, my friend. Wrapped up. I'm gonna vamp for a couple of minutes. All right, listeners. Um, here I am answering questions you might have had about the Odyssey. Uh question one: did John Homer actually write the Odyssey? In short, it's complicated. Traditional view is that one guy, eighth, maybe seventh centuries BC, wrote it. There is the oral tradition view, which Daniel Mendelson, our translator, is a fan of. Um, and part of the reason people think like it's an offshoot of an oral tradition is that there are a lot of repeated phrases. If you pick up the Mendelssohn translation, this may or may not drive you insane like it did me. Every time they read it. Every Athena description. Every Athena is Athena of the bright owl eyes. And uh Telemachus is my favorite sensible lad. Telemachus. Sensible lad. Yeah. And and like Penelope's level-headed woman or something. Yeah, yeah. It's um there's just a lot of repetition, so people think that points to this being something that was really spoken, and the repetition is you know, innate of memory. Um, compilation theory is some minority opinion that many authors contributed. Um, so the kind of rough consensus is that point at this point is that it's like kind of a combination of one and two. Um, it's like part of an oral tradition, but John Homer is probably the one to like give the poem its shape, and that's kind of what we know as the Odyssey. Okay. Number two, this is a question that I asked. Did Greeks actually practice religion around the Greek gods in the time of John Homer? Or was it really just a mythology? Um, a short answer, yeah. Temples, sacrifices, prayers, all that shit, they were doing it, they were burning thigh bones. This was a real religion. However, the stories, again, because this was like in some ways pre-literate, like the myths were told differently in many different places. And my understanding is that they weren't like as sacred as I think some of the religious stories that we know, and probably because they were sort of told orally and they they were like necessarily going to change. And I think the understanding is that people didn't always take them literally. Yeah, it's a little more flexible. It's like representative of Athena, but it's not like she she became a bird and you know, you know, whatever. Anyways, um, okay, next, was there an actual Trojan horse? More importantly, was there an actual Trojan war? Um, the war, yeah, probably, but it was like 12th, 13th century BC. Uh so what we're going on is like excavation of sites, and there's like a layer on top of a layer, and yeah, it could have been, but like we really have very little to go on. Um, the horse, given that we um are relying on archaeology for an entire war, we do not know if there was a horse made out of wood. Um, so lost to time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And finally, this was my favorite one to research. How do we even have the Odyssey today? Well, let me tell you. Oldest fragments date to third century BC in Egypt. It was written on papyrus, and we had fragments of it, but I guess our understanding from the time is that like the story was well known in the Greek-speaking world. Um, but the most important figure in the history of Homer is a man called Aristarchus of Samos. He was the head librarian of the Library of Alexandria. And he did what I understand as like a canonization process of all the different fragments of Homer that went around, line by lines, like this one feels wrong, this one feels right, and he sort of collated the thing that became the Odyssey as we know it. Um and he did the same thing for the Iliad, is at least my understanding. And the oldest complete manuscripts that we have are um from the 10th century AD, um, Byzantium type things. So, anyways, you you have a nice librarian from Alexandria to thank for uh for all the Homer being around.
SPEAKER_00Shout out librarians.
SPEAKER_01That's all I got for you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, shout out librarians, man. I love that. Well, I also looked up a couple FAQs. Thank you for uh Claude for scraping Reddit for me to find it. It was frequently asked questions of moviegoers who have not read the books. Oh a good niche. Um was Odysseus faithful to Penelope? No. Moving on.
SPEAKER_01C E G this podcast.
SPEAKER_00Why does Poseidon curse Odysseus? Uh so we've talked about blinding the Cyclops as one of the episodes. The Cyclops is canonically the son of Poseidon, or one of the sons of Poseidon. So uh he really didn't like that. But even before that point, he hated Odysseus because he favored Troy in the war. And Odysseus tricking uh Troy to sack it really irked the Earthshaker. Um so he fucked with Odysseus. Uh so he fucked with him from the beginning, and then the more prideful and boastful he got while blinding the Cyclops and refusing to make sacrifices to him, he just got more and more angry. Um that's pretty much it. Those are the only two that you didn't cover. Uh how much of the movie is actually in the original poem? Listen to our episode, my friends.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Pretty accurate. It's like we it's weird. It's like inaccurate on themes, but quite accurate on events. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which is an interesting way to go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, okay. I mean, this is we went long. I kind of thought this was gonna be a short app.
SPEAKER_00I think we'll we we'll cut five or ten minutes from it, but um or AI editor will recommend cutting most of the episode. No, I actually think it's pretty smooth. We we mix some FAQs in, but any any parting thoughts on your uh your week-long cruise through Greece? I had uh actually a lot of fun reading the poem. Uh it was just a lot more lighthearted than I remember, also partly because I was forced to translate this from Latin back in high school uh in segments. So while it might have been a very fun book to read, it was not at that point when I first consumed it. Uh so a lot more fun to skim through on my Kindle on the train. Yeah. But yeah, I I had a blast. I'm glad we get to do a book and a movie again. This is one of my favorite traditions.
SPEAKER_01Really fun. And just like I'd never read The Odyssey. I read like the first half of it in college, not for a class. So really all I remembered was Temelic to Telemachus, Temelikus, like him. Yeah, all I remembered was like the setup and then you know, whatever I knew from pop culture. So it's fun to check it off the list. Yeah. Um I want to be a mythology head. I really want to replay Hades now. Hades. I feel like I kind of know the cast. Um I don't know. And it's just fun. Like I we've been just ripping so much modern fantasy. Yeah. I feel like I got our brains working again a little bit, you know? Yeah. It's it's we're back to wet brain theory with dry brains.
SPEAKER_00God, it was fun to read like a foreword. I hadn't read a good foreword in a long time. Mendelssohn did a great. I really recommend the Mendelssohn. Um it's long, like it's it's 50 or 60 pages. Uh, but man, to get thinking about literary theory and translation again. Like it he did a great job talking through the themes.
SPEAKER_01It's yeah, it's just so fun like having these resources. Like no one has written a 60-page academic foreword to of Blood and Fire, though I would love to read it. Um so it feels like we're just kind of like out on our own on an island, shout out Odysseus, uh, reading like most of the books you cover for this pod. But it's just so fun, just like having resources and just I don't know. It's it's history, it's literature, it's everything.
SPEAKER_00I mean, a lot of the books that we read on the pod now don't even have like a wiki, much less a full research article about funny looking bit.
SPEAKER_01Like those episodes, how much we're just like wildly speculating about shit. Have we met this character before? Like you there's no question you have about the Odyssey that hasn't been answered a million times. So um which I don't it's funny that I felt more pressure talking about this as opposed to like a book with an author who's alive and trying to make a living. Should probably care more about those.
SPEAKER_00Well, you should probably think about the ridiculous shit we say about Cahill, given that we had a very fun conversation with him as an alive author. We promote his books.
SPEAKER_01We promote Cahill's books, but we respect John Homer. Oh yeah. Yeah. Um with that, uh, what do we have on the oh classic announcement section hour half in? Um we got the ice baby. The ice baby. Ice ice baby. And then the next chungus, I think we're just gonna do Empires and Dust. Yeah, we gotta. I think we're just gonna go back to back. And then the end of Cah. Well, I think there's another novella, but basically end of Cahill. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So we'll we'll be wrapping up Cahill, I'd say mid-September-ish. Yeah. Yeah. And then um, yeah, stay tuned. I think we'll go into Buellman next. Maybe a little hob, you know, if you're feeling for instance.
SPEAKER_01If anyone has strong feelings about Buelman, V Hob v mystery third option, please email us. We're we're pretty uh persuadable. So yes, we are. Um with that, uh, go out. Hey, go out and be nice to a beggar. You never know if they're a god in disguise. Don't do it out of the goodness of your heart. If you're a hundred percent sure that the beggar is not a god, spit on them. Goodbye.
