Game of Thrones vs The Iliad and The Odyssey

[Iron Hawk]

I came across this earlier. I think it's interesting how these stories parallel each other. Let the chatter commence.

[Darth Richard II]

Can't. *head explodes*

[The Marquis de Leech]

Some of the comparisons work, some don't. The obvious comparison is the war of abduction, with Lyanna = Helen, Rhaegar = Paris starting the crisis, and the cities (King's Landing and Troy) getting horribly sacked at the end. After that, things get a bit more sketchy: Robert v. Rhaegar would seem a bit like Achilles v. Hector, but the circumstances are different (duel v. wider battle), and Robert's victory is a bit less arseholish. Robert is generally a poor fit for Achilles, seeing as there was no vulnerable spot, he was never dressed in drag to avoid war, and has a rather different attitude towards sexuality. Cersei shares a similar name with Circe, and similarly uses sexuality to manipulate men, but Circe is merely amoral, whereas Cersei is Cersei. There is no obvious analogy for Odysseus (no, Ned doesn't count - he lacks the brains and promiscuity). The Red Wedding is from Scottish history, not Homer.

[Darth Richard II]

Someone needs to make a "what would Homer have thought of GoT?" thread.

[Happy Ent]

In which order should I read the Illiad and the Odyssey?

[TheEvilKing]

In which order should I read the Illiad and the Odyssey?

Alphabetical, like any good series.

[Caligula_K3]

Ent: Read the Iliad and then the Odyssey. But don't expect the Iliad to take you through the whole Trojan War; it covers a very small period of the war and deals with a very specific thread of it: Achilles' rage and its consequences. If you want to read about the sack of Troy or the events after the end of the Iliad, you'll get a bit of that in the Odyssey and Book 2 of the Aeneid (obviously written long after the composition of the Homeric poems), or in a much later epic poem such as Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica.

As for this comparison... It is very, very silly. As Roose Bolton points out, the only real parallel that works here is the war beginning over a woman; but Robert's Rebellion is a civil war whereas the Trojan War is not. Ned is not Odysseus in any way, shape or form, and Agagmemnon and Odysseus' relationship does not correspond to Robert's and Ned's (Odysseus, after all, tried to get out of fighting at Troy). Cities being betrayed from within during sieges was quite common in ancient and medieval warfare, and there's no real comparison to be made between the Trojan horse and Jamie killing Aerys (which he did after it was clear the city was going to be sacked).

Cyclops episode and Red Wedding... nope. It's true that the Cyclops' barbarity is symbolized by his disregard for xenia, the guest-host relationship, but... again, this is a common theme throughout western literature, and there's no real parallel between the Cyclops eating Odysseus' men before Odysseus can trick him and escape and Robb and Catelyn Stark getting betrayed and butchered at a wedding. I can see Clytemnestra, especially as she's presented in Aeschylus' Agamemnon, being the inspiration for Cersei type characters, but again the parallel is a real stretch.

The Iliad and the Odyssey provide much of the basis for the foundation of "western" literature as we know it, as do later Greek epics, tragedies, comedies, histories and philosophical works. As such, themes, motifs and character types have been passed down to us and still are re-used and reconsidered in modern literature, including ASoIaF. It's much more of a stretch, however, to make one to one parallels as this does. Especially when to do so, you have to exaggerate characteristics (Ned is slightly more clever than Robert!) or ignore context.

[unJon]

Tyrion is obviously Oddysseus.

[Anatúrinbor]

One more similarity is that all three works were written by the same person: R. Scott Bakker.

[sologdin]

just to take parts of book V that are well known: the thyestean feast is of course first reported in book 25 of the iliad, and caesar's death occurs during the odyssey's katabasis.

[Mel_Rose]

It's a fun read, but it is really stretching. I will agree with others that the only similarity in my mind is Helen and Lyanna.

Also, Agamemnon was murdered by his wife because he sacrificed their daughter for a fair wind. Cersei killed Robert for more selfish reasons.

[Mel_Rose]

In which order should I read the Illiad and the Odyssey?

The Iliad deals with the last few years of the Trojan war (iirc) and is full of battles and blood and deaths. Odyssey is Odysseas' voyage home after the end of the War, so it's more like an adventure/quest story.

[Reposado]

odyssey= original bad sequel. skip it entirely

straight out of hollywood

"man the illiad was huge, what should we do now"

"well, weve got that odysseus guy. what if he goes on an adventure"

"what, how does that follow from the illiad."

"hes on the way home."

"he just goes home?"

"well stuff happens. it doesnt matter. its that dude from the illiad. people will eat it up."

"ok, but its your ass"

[Darth Richard II]

vs Predator

[peterbound]

Ha, the best part of this thread is folks telling someone, who is possibly the best read cat on the board, which order to read Homer's works.

Love it.

[Myshkin]

The Mountain and the Hound are obviously the two Ajaxes (Ajaxi?).

[sologdin]

if robert is agamemnon, then cersei is klytemnestra and jaime is aegisthus--which means that tom is orestes and myrcella is elektra. tom must accordingly murder cersei to satisy the injunction to avenge patricide, but his justified execution of his mother will generate his affliction by the eumenides, because that execution contravenes the matricide prohibition.

it's a nifty thought experiment, if the parallels are true (I don't think that they are), insofar as the predictive power they may have. we can certainly test them as new volumes are published. here, if tommen is orestes, we can expect him to do many horrible things, including the killing of neoptolemus, achilles' famous son. who is achilles, then, in the parallel?

[Disturber of Peace]

If we are talking Iliad as RR then Odysseus is surely Tywin.

[Night's_King]

Hm, yes, some comparisons seem actually to work. But I think that it's rather obvious that Martin is influenced by a few of the greatest tales of all time. That and history.

But please don't compare the Iliad to ASoIaF, because Iliad >> ASoIaF.

Most Fantasy Writers get "inspiration" from such works.

[Ser Desmond Wine's Bane]

odyssey= original bad sequel. skip it entirely

Am I a bad person for thinking this is hilarious... and true?

Much better to read the Illiad, then Inquiries by Herodotus. Herodotus attempts to set the scene for the Persian invasions of Greece by examining the East vs West rivalries and the events of the Illiad were part of that by his reckoning (Jason and the Argonauts was another critical point). He carries out his investigation by travelling around the Med and asking the locals what their oral stories (history = Inquiries). The Egyptians claimed that Paris did not take Helen to Troy because he knew that is where Menelaus would look. Instead he fled in exile to Egypt. The Egyptians then held Paris and Helen and attempted to use them as pawns. This scenario in part explains why Sean Bean Odysseus went on a bit of a trip instead of heading straight home.