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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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I hope he does both. The Matter of Troy offers an infinite canvas for reinterpretation, and I'd love to see a firm effort from a Grok lead AI team to build a new version. Every work on the Matter of Troy, including Homer, is an interpretation, a new artistic spin on a series of events. The Greeks and Romans fought endlessly about Agamemnon: heroic leader or jackass who would get cucked while he was away and murked upon his return? Odysseus, charming trickster hero, or villain set for the inner circles of hell? Paris, romantic hero or kidnapper?

Odysseus, charming trickster hero, or villain set for the inner circles of hell?

Dante puts him in Hell, no questions asked. I think he is an interesting character; he's clever, and he wins the war for the Greeks through stratagems not the heroic epic battle prowess of Achilles (whose end is to die young in a blaze of glory, more or less, but only for personal glory).

He doesn't want to go to the war in the first place, and is entangled in it by an ironic twist of fate (or karma coming to get him) because of his ploy back at the start to keep the peace between the warring suitors of Helen and make them all swear to come to the defence of her husband, whichever of them got picked as her husband. He wins the war by a series of shady to dishonourable tactics, and really does only want to get back home (he spends seven years as the sex toy of Calypso, weeping on the beach by day longing to get away before being dragged to the bedchamber at night).

When he does get home, it's not the triumphant return of Agamemnon (which got him killed in revenge), it's another trickster move and finally he kills all the suitors in the proper, heroic warrior, style (though very blood-soaked, and his hanging of the maidservants reads uncomfortably to modern eyes).

Some of his troubles he undoubtedly brought upon himself by being too clever for his own good (or not taking the long-term consequences of his deeds seriously enough, at times he's really just "get out of this immediate pickle and deal with the fall-out later") and it was only by having the patronage of Athena that he survived at all.