The Odyssey

What struck me most about The Odyssey was not the story of a hero enduring hardship and finally returning home, but the idea that someone can achieve the impossible by breaking existing rules—and, in doing so, set in motion a much longer period of punishment.

It made me think about politics today. Once someone discovers that conventions, restraint, and decency only bind those who still believe in them, breaking the rules can become a source of power, wealth, and support. Others then begin to imitate the same strategy. Victory may happen in a single moment, but the trust and order destroyed along the way can take a generation to rebuild.

The film also suggests that human beings can never fully control history, nature, or fate. Intelligence may help someone win a war, but it cannot control the world created by that victory. Perhaps the best anyone can do is accept their own limitations and learn how to move within forces far larger than themselves.

My main problem is that this version of Odysseus feels too perfect. He suffers, takes responsibility, and makes sacrifices, but seems to possess almost none of the vanity, selfishness, desire, or attraction to power that would make him fully human. He makes terrible decisions, yet the film never allows him to become a genuinely dark or morally contradictory person. As a result, he feels less like the man who destroyed an order and was consumed by the consequences of his own success, and more like a saint carrying the sins of an entire civilisation.