Reading a about 3000 years old epic as a video game tie-in novel

On Homer’s Odyssey

My almost 3 years long streak of “would rather read than game” continues. While reading the Iliad has not provided me enough incentive to go back to see through 2020’s Hades again, yet, going through Odysseus’ “grand reunion tour” to the supernatural post credits in Hades II did make me itchy to open that Emily Wilson translation on my Kindle. Christopher Nolan’s butchery scheduled for summer 2026 be damned! I am just more interested in how Greg Kasavin and crew mined that well in the public domain.

When Ms. Wilson’s text for the Odyssey was published in late 2017, Supergiant had probably just decided that their Game Four would be an action rouge-lite with Greek Mythology setting, but it was not Hades yet. Given what Hades II’s 1.0 launch calls “epilogue”, reading Odyssey with the Fates on its cover feels like coming full circle.

Different times, different speeds

Those 2 volumes would be the Signet classic paperback for Rouse’ translation of Homer. I read those back in 2022. One single helmeted man is featured across both covers and I would love to think that he is Odysseus. Nestor the old man is about only other character appear in both books as a living man and he could not have dark hair given his age.

When I first started Odyssey as soon as I closed Iliad back then, there was a period of adjustment. The dread for warfare in Iliad is gone, so there was a sense of peace time meandering at the beginning of Odyssey. Another difference being the abundance of food. Odysseus told Achilles that he had not eaten this well for a while when the latter roasted a bird for him in the Iliad. In Odyssey, domestic mammals are slaughtered to provide fresh meat for each meal.

In Iliad, daybreaks mark the beginning of several chapters while Dawn/Eos only raises her rosy fingers mid-chapter in Odyssey. While both epics cover less than a week worth of days, Odyssey does have sail on the sea as time skip. The bit Odyssey is famous for is more like a story within the story. It will be discussed more later, now let’s get to framing.

It has been since a decade since the Trojan War ended and the Fall of Troy had already become a hit among the bards. Yet Odysseus, the star of that show, has not come home. His wife Penelope and son Telemachus are besieged at their home by the suitors of former. Telemachus’ life is in danger since the suitors would have no problem killing him just to marry his mother. So, as part of Anthena’s blessing for Odysseus, the Goddess of War helps Telemachus to get on journey to safety and discovery his father’s fate.

Meanwhile, after a seven years itch (According to Wilson’s Introduction in her volume) in an affair with the nymph Calypso, Odysseus is allowed to sail again through the Olympian message of Hermes. Yet, Poseidon is still pissed at him so he gets beached on Phaeacian where he is treated as an honored guest through the help of Athena induced Nausicaa (The namesake of something as archetypical as the ancient Odyssey.). There he recovers before tells of his bizarre adventure between the Fall of Troy and sharing a bed with Calypso.

Father and son eventually sail home, join the forces and get rid of the threat suitors in their home. The epic ends with a question of “Now what?” as Odysseus visits his old father and estranged wife, pining for the next adventure in his life.

So, there is the most simple outline of Odyssey’s story. The stories within are certainly more interesting, like Nestor telling Telemachus about that “Hamlet long before Shakespeare’s Hamlet” story in which Agamemnon a known hater of women is the king to be revenged.

Why Hamlet, you ask? Well, here in miHoYo’s country of origin, the Shakespeare tragedy was once translated as Wang Zi Fu Chou Ji, meaning “A Prince’ Revenge”. Not unlike that “Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hamlet” bit in Last Action Hero, it just sounds more action-packed.

So, the revenge of prince Orestes still fits the mold, with the queen helping a king’s relative to usurp the throne and all that jazz. Even though king Agamemnon is far from a paragon of virtue, to anyone who came here after the Iliad. And regardless of how that C Nolan flick turns out I am interested in seeing how Jon Benthal’s portray of Menelaus as a generous host to Tom Holland’s Telemachus.

Reading Ms. Wilson’s translation is total reverse for me compared my first rodeo in 2022. The Iliad took me about 4 months to get through. I did take a 2 months long break between main text and notes plus glossary though. I got through Odyssey in less than in 4 days, with less named characters and far less proper nouns in the glossary. According to Wilson’s introduction to the Iliad this is more way common among readers. But I guess “playing” Fate/Stay Night during Shanghai lockdown in 2022 left a deep mark back then, as I got through the more rigorously structured Iliad faster that fall.

Divine comedy

No, not Dante’s Christian belief influenced long poems. Rather, I mean a comedic scene featuring the 3 divine Olympians pictured below. I suspect that much like how Odysseus opens up about his bizarre adventure after the tale about them, I felt the impulse to read the Wilson translation of Odyssey after seeing this part of credits roll in during a late game gaming section ended at 2 a.m.

This is right of the screen during Hades II end credits while the left showing the er, band playing the end credits track (No, Ashley Barret has not sat one Supergiant end credits song out yet.). The right of screen would switch between showing crew & cast and character art like this. Look how happy Hephaestus is sitting between his 2 family members er, in better shape, handsome brother Ares on the left and gorgeous wife Aphrodite on right. As if to say “Remember the Gold Net? That was fun, heh?”

In the Phaeacian court, Odysseus is still not quite himself until the bard there tells a comedic tale about the 3 gods above: Hephaestus finally was feed up with his brother er fucking his wife and made a gold net to catch them both in the act on the bed. Then he called all Olympians to watch the shameful couple. All the ladies stayed behind, while gods were all there and they almost all laughed.

To picture them with Hades II’s pantheon, Zeus and Dionysus, the latter always drunk while the former was just amused by the sight of Hera’s sons at each other’s throats, just laughed their asses off. Hermes and Apollos, both Zeus’ bastards in only one sense of the word, had a banter about wouldn’t it be nice to be caught in gold net with the fabulous Aphrodite. Only Poseidon stepped in without laughing and told Hephaestus to let Ares out of the net so the God of War can pay his debt to the God of Forge.

Odysseus is impressed by the bard’s vivid telling and demands the Fall of Troy next only to pause for the reason of such event not fit for dinner table. Then the next 5 Books/scrolls/chapters would be taken up by his own telling of his misfortune since Troy.

Standout scrolls

The Homeric text feels epic for its ensemble cast, yet Iliad centering around Achilles and Odyssey around Odysseus. The reason being that the Books, scrolls or chapters featuring those tend to stand out from the rest. Achilles is a man of action, so the 3 about him are jammed packed with action of killing Trojans, surviving a flood and taking down Hector. Odysseus is a warrior but he is also good with words, so the 4 about him have him spinning tales. Here Hades II players would see “old friends”.

After several fruitless raids, Odysseus’ men ended up on an island of one-eyed giants and the one they met named Polyphemus is a dickhead in more than one sense of the word. This one tended to eat those ended up on his doorstep.

Here is Odysseus calling himself “No man” or “Nobody” so he can blind Polyphemus without the victim getting help. “No mortal” seems to be the meaning of pseudo name here, with the other one-eyed giants’ reaction to “no man” being “So Zeus is messing with you? No way we are getting in the way of Zeus”.

Polyphemus in the Odyssey is a son of Poseidon (Something Hades II had to shrug off as a joke since one needs to take Polyphemus down at least 6 times to see credits roll. Plus, they cannot have Poseidon being pissed at the player for any other reason than one chooses another Olympian’s boon over his.) thus he prayed to dear old dad to chase down those who blinded him. So, Odysseus’ crew got beached on the island where the swine herding Circe resided.

There we got some sort “big dick Odysseus” energy as the witch goddess turned his men into pigs but amused by his name. The two got into bed in that sense of words and Circe’ island would serve as a hub area if this is RPG.

First Odysseus sailed to the underworld to ask a dead prophet regarding how deep is he in the shit with gods. Here is this most “sequel to Iliad” bit of this one, as Odysseus met the ghosts of Agamemnon and Achilles, the former still pissed about being deadly usurped.

Then he returned to bid Circe farewell before the famous Scylla and Charybdis bit. It feels unique for other sea journeys in the poem are mere time skips while this is a set piece about sailing by a storm caused by Charybdis. Even Melinoe the daughter of Hades can only fight off the whirlwind causing goddess’ tentacles and leg it after all.

Finally, on top of the deep shit they are in with Olympians, Odysseus’ men pissed Helius aka the sun himself by eating his cattle. So, Odysseus became the sole survivor under the care of Calypso.

Books 9 to 12 are what Odyssey known for. This is a global trotting journey within the world view back then and one major reason why Nintendo titled their 2017 Mario game that. No, Ubisoft's titling their Assassin Creed game with ancient Greek setting was just lazy corporate bastards picking off low-hanging fruit. While Penelope and Telemachus are mentioned in Hades II, they are quite the afterthoughts compared to the mythic elements of Odysseus’ journey.

Odysseus lies a lot in Odyssey. There are the conveniently constructed lies and there is getting creative with the truth. This bizarre adventure bit seems to be the later for how he tell friends from foes at home is the former. As improbable as into Hades and back again sounds, the first hand account of Agamemnon’s demise is true within the context. And the final chapter sees the ghosts of suitors granted by the Mycnee king suggest that the 2 did have a reunion in the afterlife after they parted ways after the fall of Troy.

Despite how bad 2004’s Troy butchers the Iliad, Odysseus pretending that he is not Odysseus as his introduction is on point, though myth suggests that the envoy pulled some daring stuns of their own. Homeric epics also keeping character titles appears a lot, Zeus is usually “Son of Cronus” even though Time himself never appears as a character and Odysseus is rightfully “godlike”.

The gods do not get any action in Odyssey, Athena’s blessing for Odysseus is given by her shapeshifts and persuades various people to help him. Odysseus himself is sliver tongued enough to persuades through deception without breaking a sweat. It’s funny to imagine had the suitors treated him pretending to be a bugger they might still be alive, might robbed of their wealth but still draw breath since Odysseus like the gods judge and punish people according to their actions. Punishment can be hash but the man can justify those as fair.

How I wish the longer O word sticked

The books pictured above do fit into the mold of space opera, as they are about the clash of different spacefaring civilizations. Yet the soap opera on spaceships aspect is not there, as there is not a more or less fixed crew to follow in those. Only one singe character as he experience one spectacular space oddity after another.

Set in a far future when humanity has spread across the galaxy, it still shares a laugh at the idea of galactic empire with the Expanse’ mostly solar system voyages. And ah yes, that Exodus game does sound like it but I doubt the game can provoke “Lost in time like tears in rain” feeling like the books. Either way, I do hope Space Odyssey extend beyond that 1968 Kubrick flick. With faster-than-light travel being an analogue to underworld in myth, you would think it’s a given...