the gods must be crazy

One of the most striking things about the Odyssey is the relationships between gods and humans. In the US, our culture is based largely off of Abrahamic religions, which preach different versions of a single omnipotent God, a God very far removed from humans. There is not really space in those religions for God coming down to earth and “meddling” in human affairs for His own amusement, not to mention the idea of God coming down and sleeping with humans is inconceivable. It has been very interesting for me to see the fundamentally different conceptions of deities and spirits that the Greeks have.

To start, the Greek gods are just kinda mean. There are countless examples of the gods condemning humans just because they can, but one that comes to mind are the Phaeacians. In Book 13, they were just minding their own business, giving good xenia to travelers, but Poseidon decides to punish them because he is still residually angry at Odysseus. His punishment is especially cruel – there really was no need to put a whole mountain in front of their docks. They have a bit of a cop-out excuse at the beginning when I think Zeus says that the gods always provide a warning, and it is up to humans to heed that warning (a theme we see play out a few times), but the gods are still pretty cruel in their punishments. In general, the gods seem to enjoy meddling a lot. Whereas the Abrahamic God can sometimes interferes in human affairs if the results will be consequential (think: Noah’s Arc or Moses’ revelation of the 10 Commandments), the Greek gods seem to enjoy just stirring the pot. The whole chain of events of the novel began when the gods were hanging out and bored on Mount Olympus, and Athena decided she has taken a liking to this one particular human. It seems very arbitrary, and fueled by personal interest rather than the more all-encompassing life-or-death seriousness of the Abrahamic God interfering. In addition, Greek gods seem to interact with humans a lot more, and a lot more casually – there are enough demigods running around to prove that Greek gods have no problem having casual interactions with humans.

So what does this mean for our friend Odysseus? To start, there is the question of how heroic he truly is. We have talked a lot in class about how much of a role Athena plays in setting up Odysseus’ heroism. From influencing the Phaeacians and Nausicaa to entice them to help Odysseus, and in Book 13, Athena basically lays out complete a plan for Odysseus on her own. In addition, Circe helps Odysseus with most of the “hard parts” of his wanderings (such as getting past the Sirens or Scylla). At this point, one has to ask, is Odysseus a hero, or is her just a puppet of the gods? If his heroism is pre-arranged, how heroic is he really? After all, when we do see him making his own decisions (such as calling himself Noname) it usually ends up badly for him (when he reveals himself at the end, he ends up killing his crew). We aren’t done with the epic yet, and I am interested in seeing how it ends, and if the situation will change for him at all in the end, when he reclaims his home.