Odysseus is the hero, NOT a villain

Spoiler Warning: Even if you’re already familiar with Homer’s Odyssey, and though Christopher Nolan’s version sticks to all the same major plot points, there are enough changes to the emotional arc of the story that I can’t discuss Nolan’s story without issuing this spoiler warning. If you haven’t seen the film yet, I say it’s worth watching!

When a new film comes out, criticisms tend to widely vary, hinging on critics’ different expectations and subjective preferences. Yet oftentimes consensus opinions will arise, and these typically reflect some basis in objective reality: A “bad performance” may be the result of an actor not given sufficient accent coaching. A “formulaic plot” may be one that too closely followed the story of another earlier and more famous film.

Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is in my opinion an imperfect masterpiece. It doesn’t surprise me that the movie has engendered criticisms from many corners (not only conservatives upset over race-swapping), but rather the nature of those criticisms and their relative lack of throughline. Though there are many who are upset over Nolan’s changing of themes and characters from the original work, there’s been no consensus on what exactly Nolan did wrong. For example:

Broey Deschanel and Cole Haddon are the names of two critics who I both respect and whose reviews of Nolan’s Odyssey I largely agree with, yet all three of us disagree about Nolan’s primary authorial intent. These two critics even directly contradict each other about something as fundamental as whether Odysseus is intended to be this tale’s hero or villain. One says he’s not sinned enough to deserve the grueling karmic punishments doled out by gods. The other says his sins are past the point of redemption. One says Nolan is hampered by his proclivity towards crowd-pleasing; the other argues he’s doing the exact opposite of crowd-pleasing.

Between these two extremes, there must lie the truth. I’ll share criticisms of Nolan’s adaptation, while sometimes defending his choices, but mostly I intend to defend his Odysseus, whose heroic qualities I believe are being under-appreciated by these and other critics.

From Greek hero to war criminal

Rather than pen and direct a purely faithful adaptation, Nolan chose instead to transform Homer’s story of adventure, cleverness, and hubris into a story focused on guilt and trauma.

I think this, more so than anything else—even the movie’s many anachronisms or anatopisms in costuming, setting, or even boat design—drove up dissatisfaction among the movie’s detractors. Many fans of Homer’s Odyssey presumably looked forward to re-experiencing the story they love about a valiant trickster with a head full of hubris, always paying the price for his arrogance but rewarded for his cleverness. What they got instead was an alternate-universe fanfic that probably should have been named something other than “The Odyssey”.

If that sounds harsh, it’s not meant to be. Alternate-universe fanfics are great. My point is that people will naturally be disappointed when they don’t receive what they thought they were paying for. The trick with the Trojan Horse was Odysseus’s greatest feat; Nolan recontextualizes the deception as a war crime.

Cole Haddon, a scriptwriter of 20 years who’s written the most thoughtful piece I’ve encountered on Nolan’s adaptation, focuses on the heinousness of this war crime and paints Odysseus not as a flawed hero or anti-hero, but a full-fledged villain. He believes it was Nolan’s intent to trick audiences into rooting for an evil man (played so affably by the ever reliable, everyman-acting Matt Damon), leading them to the awful realization of how they’ve been tricked only once the credits roll (with its haunting, bitter music echoing the movie’s final image, which is not one of happiness, but of the burning horse). The purpose? To challenge us to interrogate our own “toxic beliefs” and complacency with colonialism.

It’s important to recognize that almost every interaction Odysseus and his men initiate after departing Troy involves threat, theft or terror because after what Odysseus did in Troy, Zeus’s Law has become an antiquated notion to justify barbaric behavior rather than prevent it.Civilization has been broken.Odysseus broke it.He can pretend to be decent and civilized all he wants, but he’s the real monster now.That’s the real kicker of Nolan’s trick. On a second viewing, you discover the hero you cheered for the first time around is actually the villain of the story and realize he cast lovable, trustworthy Matt Damon to help you fall for him as your good guy. You discover how easily you were manipulated into supporting a white American man responsible for the genocide of a desert people.

And he’s not wrong. Nolan pulled these themes in deliberately and unmistakably. When viewed from this particular lens, Odysseus and his men do indeed take on the mantle of villainy. How I disagree with Haddon is a matter of emphasis: He sees this lens as central, while I see it as subservient to the greater goal of underscoring Odysseus’s heroism.

More on that in a bit. First I want to share the opposite view.

From Greek hero to Hollywood

With half a million subscribers and already over 350 thousand views on her hour-long Odyssey review), I think it’s fair to say that YouTuber Broey Deschanel is more popular than your average film critic. Her take on the Odyssey is measured, thoughtful, and full of compelling points.

A large focus of her video essay is on Nolan’s prioritization of plot over character and dialogue, a fondness for big, intricate ideas that can leave his protagonists relatively bereft of humanity (like Tenet, a very fun and intricate film whose main character is so generic—though played warmly by John David Washington, who shoulders the role well—he’s never even named). Deschanel charges Nolan with crafting a “focus grouped Odysseus… optimized to be liked and understood by as many people as possible”. Which I don’t disagree with, directionally speaking—he’s certainly been smoothed out compared to Homer’s original. I just disagree to what extent.

Deschanel argues that this sanding down creates tension with the story’s overall arc. We are meant to witness terrible punishment mete out for commensurately terrible crimes. If the crimes aren’t really so bad (or if Odysseus hardly had a hand in them), then the punishment will feel disproportionate and the story hollow. And not only have the actions of Odysseus and his men have been relatively sanitized., but the themes of guilt, repentance and xenia (guest right, or “Zeus’s law”) are contradicted by the movie’s final sequence, in which Matt Damon gets to play the action hero enacting vengeance, unleashing his inner Jason Bourne on all of Penelope’s suitors, his guests.

In her own words:

[Nolan] spends so much time sanitizing Odysseus into a likable hero that we never fully come to understand what he’s repenting for… The entire crux here of Odysseus’s guilt lies in their sacking of Troy, and the idea that the Greeks defiled Athena’s temples and killed civilians. But when we go back to Troy in flashback, we rarely see Odysseus kill anyone and never women. Instead, he walks through the city as a witness to the carnage.

And:

Even Odysseus’s men are blameless. When Eurylochus comes upon Cersei, he reiterates again and again very valiantly that he’s not going to hurt her, rendering her musings in the next scene about how terrible men are kind of null.

And Deschanel isn’t the only one to feel this way about Odysseus. Here is Substacker Romanoff making a similar case:

This conflict ultimately doesn’t work, because Odysseus is essentially depicted as a perfect character without flaws, not even in this universe’s binary representation of good and evil. He doesn’t want to go to Trojan War. He doesn’t want to leave his family. He misses his wife. He is a good husband. He feels bad about leaving them.

When I squint, I can kind of see where they’re coming from. But for the most part, I find this stance pretty confusing, especially considering the entire “Odysseus is a war criminal” lens, of which neither reviewer is ignorant.

A snarky and belligerent meta-review at this point might say, “What, is the war crime not war crime-y enough for you?” Except that’s not the right question to ask (even in less snarky form). I think it’s completely natural for the war crime angle to not land well with certain viewers! Nolan has attempted similar themes in the past that didn’t land for me—namely, Batman’s guilt in The Dark Knight over the usage of spyware and lying to Gotham about Harvey Dent. Despite being one of my favorite films, I always thought it odd that Bruce would self-flagellate over these particular acts when he’s already a vigilante causing untold hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to the city’s streets, infrastructure, cars, etc.

With Odysseus, maybe the PTSD framing just feels too anachronistic. Maybe the execution’s just not there, the emotions too over-wrought, or the dialogue a bit off. Here’s Romanoff again:

Maybe if we weren’t so constantly over-exposed to every emotion every character feels in this flat script, it could have worked. There is so little subtlety in this script that it extends to every actor’s performance feeling rushed.

Rather—I find this stance perplexing for two different reasons.

First, even if acts committed during the Trojan war could be forgiven entirely, Odysseus and his men are not “blameless”, for as we see in the very first scene of their journey home, they sack the city of Ismarus.

ODYSSEUS: Assemble a landing party. Food and water. Enough for 3 weeks.

PERIMEDES: What if they won’t give it?

EURYLOCHUS: How badly do you want to get home?

PERIMEDES: Get your weapons ready!

Relative to the movie’s 2 hour and 52 minute runtime, the sacking of Ismarus happens quickly and with relatively little dramatic emphasis—but it’s there. Maybe that’s a part of the trick that Haddon describes: Nolan smoothing things over so you neither hate Odysseus nor disapprove of his constant duty and desire to protect his men.

I argue that this tact enriches the movie, rather than impoverishes it. Like the scene with Cersei that Deschanel highlights, that has Cersei cowering while Eurylochus reiterates his lack of harmful intent. Is he lying? He showed no remorse over Ismarus. Maybe he turns chivalrous in the presence of a defenseless woman; maybe he will be honorable for now, but as he nears starvation, desperation may turn him towards monstrous methods.

But even with all that aside, there still remains one much more fundamental reason why I disagree with not only Deschanel and Romanoff, but also Haddon.

Heroism is Responsibility

Odysseus never murders, never rapes, and yet is tormented by so much guilt that the thought of returning home feels like a violation (as we learn in the crucial and absolutely harrowing scene with sirens). He can’t bear to see his homeland shaken by the uncivilizing forces he’s unleashed by breaking Zeus’s law.

The other Greeks do murder and rape and pillage, yet never show any remorse.

This setup doesn’t undermine the theme of karmic punishment (after all, Odysseus survives while his men perish). Instead, the contrast serves to make Odysseus stand out from his peers. In Nolan’s writing and Matt Damon’s performance, I see a man still prideful, fickle and flawed, yet also admirable. He holds himself accountable where others would not.

Odysseus never entirely gives up his guilt and never gives up fighting. His pivotal growth is shown when he comes to terms with his guilt/trauma/depression and finds a measure of peace by letting go. No longer trying to control his fate, he builds a ramshackle raft and lets the gods decide whether he’ll die or be blown back home.

For this, he’s rewarded the opportunity for vengeance.

Deschanel writes:

This Odysseus is wracked with guilt over the killings at Troy due to his violation of xenia. Yet triumphantly slaughters the suitors in the film’s final battle sequence designed for us to yell in support even though here he is being a pretty bad host, wouldn’t you say?

What does it mean to be a good host for a cohort of liars, thieves, and those who have tried to murder your son?

Odysseus violated xenia in order to end a war. These are ends that may not be justified by the means, but it’s preferable to pursuing purely selfish ends. The suitors transgressed upon xenia far worse, perverting Zeus’s law unto their own greedy desires.

Odysseus enacts his final, bloody vengeance upon the ignominious suitors knowing full well he might not survive the fracas. He has still given his life to the Gods, acting as their instrument of justice for now, perhaps a tool to be discarded and expired afterward, perhaps not. It’s only after this second show of faith—and the receipt of a grievous injury that will likely pain him for the rest of his days—that he finally gets his happy-ever-after.

Deschanel sees Odysseus sail away with Penelope and perceives a happy ending for a character whose worst flaws have been flattened.

Haddon sees the film’s final moment dwelling on the burning Trojan Horse and perceives a tragedy: the villain sailing away with unearned deserts.

I see both images juxtaposed and perceive a story that’s bittersweet, because the road that any hero must walk is necessarily a difficult one. Odysseus has sinned too greatly to ever receive an uncomplicated, unblemished happy-ever-after. He will never entirely relinquish his guilt. Yet he does get to sail away, with both life and wife, because he never gave up: always trying to protect his men, even after mutiny. Always trying to follow the Gods, even after their terrible trials. Always knowing he’d be headed home, despite his desires otherwise .

YouTuber Jamelle Bouie makes a useful comparison of Nolan’s Odysseus to Nolan’s other protagonists (like Batman):

Nolan believes that there are heroes and Nolan believes that those heroes are great men, or can be, but he also believes that those heroes bear some responsibility for creating the world that they now have to save. Not total responsibility… The ultimate responsibility lies with [the evil men of chaos]. But the hero does not escape blame. Nolan also clearly thinks that chaos of this sort is so corrosive, so dangerous, that you may have to break the rules to address it. You may have to step outside the bounds of society to beat it back.

The acceptance of responsibility is the single greatest distinction between heroes and villains. Lex Luthor could wreak great works of industry and philanthropy, but could still be viewed the villain when his motives are corrupt. Walter White only came into redemption and heroism when he realized he’d acted out of ego, not love, and finally took responsibility for his actions.

Nolan’s Odysseus accepts responsibility for the Trojan trick, and so cannot be the villain that Haddon suggests. And what Deschanel misses is this: The more we consider Odysseus blameless—because maybe we judge the Trojan Horse to have been a necessary wartime maneuver, and every other failure an understandable mistake—the more that adds to his heroism for accepting such extreme ownership and responsibility.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is my go-to example, though for a second, I’ll say I still unironically love Steven Moffat’s Sherlock.

His self-loathing amplifies when he loses his men, and it’s a subsequent deep and suicidal depression that I believe the Calypso sequence represents. I know it’s just a fictional character to whom we can ascribe any sort of hypothetical behaviors or interiority, but I’d posit that without the lotus flowers, he likely would have killed himself. And as a side note to this footnote: That one moment with the sirens was the second best of the whole film, in my opinion, second only to the final bow thrum. Ludwig Göransson is a goddang master.

A perfectly smoothed out protagonist would not have fired that final arrow at the Cyclops, for instance.

I figured it’s fitting to reference a book by Navy SEALS in a post about Western canon’s most famous seafaring military hero.