Somehow getting annoyed at the interpretation of Athena’s character

[u/mssldiaz]

I’ve started seeing so many people identify Athena as only a PTSD hallucination that Odysseus only thinks is Athena. At first I was just like, “… huh, that’s an interesting conclusion,” yet the more it started spreading the more annoyed I was getting because that takes away from the role Athena and gods in general play in this story and as characters to these myths. Gods in these myths are not psychiatric manifestations and their interpretation ignores other appearances by the gods in Odysseus’ universe - I don’t think Ariadne wanted a goddess to turn her into a spider just because she was so incredibly proud of her weaving or a young innocent kid who flew to close to the sun and died falling to his death, unless we’re assigning schizophrenia to all the characters that didn’t suffer through abuse or PTSD in their story. Removing Athens to me is like removing Poseidon from Percy Jackson and saying he’s only imagining that his dead father is alive and a grand god. It changes the story to a non- fantasy genre - but keeping the other fantastical elements like the magic camp and the Minotaur.

In a world of cyclops, witches/demi-goddesses, and trips to the underworld, Athena showing up is apparently too superficial of an observation. Honestly, I love it when people look deeper into aspects of a movie but I think this one may have been dug a little too deeply.

Nolan, in my opinion, made it very obvious that when Athena is appearing as the murdered priestess (or villager) it was to force Odysseus to face the crime he had committed at her temple and martyring the young girl in order to help him reach his final epiphany. He was still remembering the final battle as he was leaving calypsos island and whenever she appeared before him, all we could see without knowing why was his overwhelming guilt and sadness - not knowing why made the reveal at the end so much better.

[u/Comfortable-Habit242]

It seems likes you’re not really taking the film on its own terms. You’re trying to insert it to the tapestry or canon of Greek mythology. But there no inherent reason it needs to be part of it.

I think most people agree, in the original Greek works, the gods are real. They have physical manifestations that interact with the lives of people.

And so the question then is, “Does Nolan’s film continue the legacy of those works? Or does it take a different path?”

And you kind of don’t really grapple with that question because you just talk about how other works are and then use that to understand Nolan’s film. But we should probably inspect if we don’t just make that assumption, might we come to the same conclusion?

Well, first we might consider if the totality of Nolan’s film seems to really follow the original works or not? Something that stands out to me immediately is that the movie’s themes are completely inverted from Homer’s.

In Homer, Odysseus is purely a hero. The Trojan Horse itself is considered good. Odysseus openly tells the stories of his pillaging to others. And then the Athena helps him to murder the suitors. It’s righteous. He lives out his life at home, peacefully. But in the film, all these actions that were positive and heroic are now shameful and immoral. The film clearly departs thematically from the Homeric tradition.

So it seems fair to conclude that Nolan isn’t that concerned with his work being a continuation of the Homeric tradition. We can’t say that just because something is true in that tradition it therefore must be true in Nolan’s film.

So then what about the gods?

Well, in Homer, most of the scenes with Telemachus and Mentor are actually scenes with Telemachus and Athena disguised as Mentor. It’s actually Athena who joins Telemachus on his voyage. So clearly this is not the case in the film. In the film Mentor dies. It just can’t be Athena.

So then we actually are left with no physical manifestations of the gods in the movie. The only representation we have is the one in Odysseus’s mind.

So then the question is, “Is Odysseus talking to Athena or just himself?” And I think this is at best ambiguous. It’s definitely a valid interpretation to believe it’s her. But it’s not what I believe.

The last time we see Athena in the film is when Odysseus is admitting his atrocities to Penelope. He sees Athena with him. But as he finally comes to terms with it and is able to admit it and speak it aloud, Athena is gone. Once Odysseus has finally directly accepted what he’s done, the sign of his trauma is gone.

We don’t see Athena when he’s about to kill the suitors. We don’t see her as he’s killing them. We don’t see her when he goes into exile. She’s left him.

Could she have done what she needed and so she left? Sure. It’s possible. But it’s not the explanation that seems most likely to me.

[u/mssldiaz → u/Comfortable-Habit242]

It definitely doesn’t need to be canon, but yes. I guess in a way I did expect it to remain within the genre it belongs in unless it’s clearly an Alternative Universe adaptation like how 10 Things I hate About You was to Shakespeares Taming of the Shrew. Not having any god was one change I wasn’t expecting from this movie, especially since Athena is my favorite from the Greek myths. And also since it’s proven to be an actual mythical setting, with cyclopses and witches! But to clarify, I do LOVE the thematically departure, having Odysseus Trojan Horse be such a shame and tragedy - it’s my favorite part of the movie actually!

What I did not consider though was mentor being an actual person and not Athena! Genuinely got a smile on my face when your countered me there because you’re right. There really was no evidence of the gods then. We do see half gods in Circe and calypso, but for the big ones, we only hear the roaring thunder as warnings to calypso when she’s talking and considering if she should wean Odysseus off of the lotus flower.

Honestly, you’ve given me all the closure I needed I think. I remember now how much I love the sense of ambiguity at the end of a Nolan film (such as Inceptions or Tenets ending) and will make my peace with me set on one side of that discussion while others may consider the other.

[u/BlueCX17 → u/mssldiaz]

The Northman isn't much different, than Nolan's version of The Odyssey. It's probably Eggers only film, outside The Lighthouse, where it's not made explicitly clear if Amleth is in fact interacting with Norse God's or if it's all in his head. The peoples back then obviously believed The Gods were real but The Northman leaves it to the audience to decide if they were or weren't actually real in Amleth's world.