Transcript of Video Essay on Odysseus and the Art of Lying

My video essay on Odysseus and the art of lying

0. Introduction

Who is the greater hero? Achilles or Odysseus? I’ve been rereading the Odyssey while retracing Odysseus’s journey over land and sea all the way here to Ithaca. And I wanted to highlight for you the Cyclops episode as one where you really see the difference between these two heroes.

1. The Cyclops Scene

Now these details are unfortunately omitted from Nolan’s adaptation, but in the Cyclops episode, you see Odysseus use his superpower, his ability to lie, to take on new identities, but you also see him commit a tactical blunder that will cause him unbounded suffering. And it’s a scene whose full significance is only available in the ancient Greek. So let me break this down for you.

Achilles, as the classical conception of the hero, is known for his might. Okay, the Greek word for that is bia. Odysseus, on the other hand, is known for his cunning, and the word for that is metis. So that’s going to be very important later on. Now in the Cyclops episode, Odysseus is trapped in …