Troy

[FrostyBoy]

Oh btw, waiting for Alexander the Great with anticipation now!

Bring on historical movies!

Oh that reminds me, King Arthur is coming too!

[St Leo]

Originally posted by MarkG
Why we have to bring sex into everything from the back door escapes me....

Because some people don't really have a front door to sex?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Sn00py
Oh btw, waiting for Alexander the Great with anticipation now!

any word on the storyline? i mean, they'll have to cut a few of the battles otherwise the movie will be 5 hours long

[LDiCesare]

IF Achilles dies because of simply a co-warrior dies, then he is NOT a hero! He jeopardizes the war for a co-warrior? A lover, you can understand. There are certain emotions with that. But a friendship? No matter how good, it isn't as deep as a love relationship and thus this act becomes selfish instead of heroic.

You've got Achilles right. He starts the Illiad jeopardizing the war for a bauble (actually a girl). He is not a hero in the sense 'generous'. He is a hero in the sense he can kill anyone else. He was so powerful that he couldn't even be killed by a man, but by Apollon (who either guided the arrow shot by Paris or shot it himself). As for Achilles being gay, please remember he had a son, Pyrrhos, actually named Neoptolemos.
Not including the gods is pretty silly imo. They play a role, showing that the powerful will put the less powerful at war against one another for their own reasons. You can't say the movie shows that the war was pointless if you don't have the gods in the story, because the war is the vengeance of the gods upon Troy, Paris and Aphrodite. And of course the fight between Aphrodite and Diomedes disappears, which is a pity since Diomedes is the only mortal to wound a god or goddess, and even that was a message: Gods don't wager war, they'll only get a small cut on the hand if they disobey, while non gods, even if they are sons of gods, will die and mustn't be protected. The dichotomy 'selfish rulers of the world'/'selfish warriors' is very strong in the Illiad, and losing it loses half of the story.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by MarkG
you missed my point, re-read m post i was actually arguing that Homer didnt have any secret homosexual meaning in the Achilles/Patroclos friendship.

Homer wanted to give his audience a hero, and what better story to tell than a great warrior dieing to avenge the death of his co-warrior? If Achilles dies for his lover that would make Iliad a love story, which is not. There is no big love in Iliad, even the Paris-Helen romance is a game of the Gods. Menelaos doesnt demand a war cause he cant sleep alone in his bed, he does so cause his honor is hurt.

Why we have to bring sex into everything from the back door escapes me....

I'm not sure I follow that logic. If Achilles happened to be knobbing Patroclus, how does that make the Iliad a love story?

Is the battle of Thermopylae a love story too, in that case?

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by MarkG
any word on the storyline? i mean, they'll have to cut a few of the battles otherwise the movie will be 5 hours long

I read that it will take you through the 8 years of his battles, all the way to India

I imagine it will be a long movie, 3 or 3.5 hrs long.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by MarkG
Why we have to bring sex into everything from the back door escapes me....

No pun intended, I'm sure.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Sn00py
I read that it will take you through the 8 years of his battles, all the way to India

I imagine it will be a long movie, 3 or 3.5 hrs long.

they could make it in two parts then. double money

[MarkG]

Originally posted by JohnT
No pun intended, I'm sure.

dirty minds think dirty

[JohnT]

Well, I was going to say "There goes MarkG, bringing homosexuality into yet another thread"... that is, until I remembered that picture of Brad Pitt on the previous page.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by MarkG
so, "too close friends" for today's standards = they JUST HAVE to be gay...

the thought that the greatest epic poet ever, Homer, would need to have some events/ emotions/ acts of, well... epic proportions to make his ancient audience... gasp, is at least absurd, right?

the thought that for someone to be a hero he must do something extreme heroic thing(like avenge and die for his friend) is idiotic, correct?

indeed they were gay....

I'm not judging by today's standards- and neither it seems were Aeschylus or Plato. Or indeed the other Greek and Roman writers, AND Shakespeare AND Cavafy, who all used the relationship between Achilles and Patroklos to symbolize the love between two warriors- something which also existed amongst other warrior castes in the Celts and the Samurai. Perhaps I'm misreading all those black figure vases replete with sexualized imagery of warriors, but somehow I don't think so.....

Quite obviously a modern 'gay' politicized identity didn't exist, but then Homer wasn't dealing with a guilt-ridden Judaeo-Christianized culture with big taboos on same sex relationships or the portrayal of naked male bodies or lesbian love poetry. The relationship between Achilles and Patroklos is no different than that which we know existed between the members of the Sacred Band of Thebes and the historical partnership of Aristogeiton and Harmodius- and later, Alexander and his comrade in arms and bed, Hephaestion.

Imagine, all this denial of an erotic relationship between Achilles and Patroklos, in anachronistic subservience to a Christian morality. If anyone is judging by inaccurate standards, it's you.

As for Achilles having a son- well so did Zeus, but it didn't stop him lusting after Ganymede, and Herakles bedded men as well as women.

In real life of course, many gay men and lesbians have children- it doesn't preclude them from being gay- anyone with working equipment can spawn progeny after all.

[LDiCesare]

I didn't say Achilles wasn't gay, I said he was bisexual in the previous post... The term 'gay' being used as 'homosexual' would then be wrong because he was probably bi, that is both homo and hetero.
Anyway, whether a fabulous character was gay or not is probably moot, son't you think?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by JohnT
Well, I was going to say "There goes MarkG, bringing homosexuality into yet another thread"... that is, until I remembered that picture of Brad Pitt on the previous page.

this thread was gay long before i came in

[MarkG]

Herakles bedded men as well as women.

i'd love to see some quotes on that....

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by MarkG

Herakles bedded men as well as women.

i'd love to see some quotes on that....

I don't think he ever actually admitted it, I think he was trying to keep it quiet