Blogging The Odyssey: Part 11 (The Red Wedding, Basically)

Last time on Blogging The Odyssey, Penelope decided to let the suitors battle it out for the honor of her hand in marriage, which, you know, I get.

Book 21: Odysseus Strings His Bow

Penelope retrieves her husband’s bow. You’ll remember that Odysseus is like the Legolas of bows and arrows, so this is a Big Deal. The bow is Very Important. We even get an entire tragic backstory for the bow, like the bow is a brooding antihero in a young adult novel rather than an inanimate object that can’t feel emotions.

She tells the suitors they’ve plagued this house for long enough. She’ll deign to marry whoever can shoot an arrow through the holes of twelve axes, just as Odysseus once did, and then she and her new husband will GTFO.

Eumaeus and the cowherd, Philoetius, weep to hear this; she’s effectively forfeiting her title as queen. The suitor Antinous chastises them for upsetting Penelope with their dumb tears. I feel like his evil plot to murder her son was also upsetting her, but I guess there’s no way to know for sure.

He acts fake-sad that Penelope’s finally giving up her husband, but you can definitely sense the timbre of truth when he says this:

Not a soul in the crowd can match Odysseus—
what a man he was…

The lesson: Odysseus is so hot that his hotness transcends all bitter enmity.

Telemachus takes the bow first, but he’s such a pathetic baby-man that he can’t even string it, which is really embarrassing for everyone involved.

“God help me,” the inspired prince cried out,
“must I be a weakling, a failure all my life?”

— also me, trying to separate two shopping carts at the grocery store last Wednesday

Eumaeus and Philoetius can’t bear to watch this spectacle. They leave, and Odysseus, still disguised as a hobo, sneaks out after them. Beggar!Odysseus tests the pair’s loyalty by asking them if they’re still willing to ride or die for their king. When they confirm that they are, he follows it up with (and I quote) “I’m right here.” Holy anticlimax, Batman! I mean, it’s not like he’s revealing himself to the suitors or his wife or some other equally important character, but still. I cannot imagine a less cool way to find out your long-lost leader is still alive. It would be like if Gandalf the White showed up in Fangorn Forest like

New Line Cinema

and just said “Hey guys. I brought snacks.”

Odysseus shows them the scar on his foot (apparently no one else in Ithaca has ever had a scar on their foot), and they instantly believe him. They swear to fight alongside him when the slaughter begins. Odysseus says, “I’ll go back in first, then you guys come in like three minutes after. Maybe five, but definitely no more than seven. BE COOL, OKAY?”

Meanwhile, none of the suitors can even string the bow, because they are WEAK and COWARDLY. Eurymachus is like, “I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE DISGRACING ODYSSEUS BY NOT BEING ABLE TO STRING HIS BOW AND DO SEX WITH HIS WIFE.”

Beggar!Odysseus wants to give it a try. The suitors are furious that he has the GALL to even SUGGEST SUCH A THING. Penelope insists they give this guy a shot, but they only agree to do so when Telemachus voices a similar opinion, because he’s a man-stud with facial hair. He tells them, “It’s not like he’ll succeed, so who cares? Let him try. Also, Mom? You should just probably go to bed. I bet nothing interesting is going to happen tonight, least of all murder.”

Penelope takes her leave. Without missing a beat, Odysseus shoots an arrow through all twelve axe heads. As someone who can barely throw or catch a ball, I can’t fathom the athleticism this requires. Neither, apparently, can anyone else. They stare at him, stunned. In the silence that follows, Zeus throws down a clap of ominous thunder. HERE WE GO.

Book 22: Slaughter in the Hall

Odysseus throws off his hobo disguise, and within about two seconds, he’s fired an arrow straight through the throat of Antinous. It’s all very Mockingjay: Part 2.

The suitors are trying not to panic. They figure, okay, best-case scenario, this is just some crazy, jacked-up homeless man with glistening biceps who’s going rogue. They can totally take him. Worst-case… well. The worst-case scenario is that King Odysseus has returned to get his revenge, but what are the odds of that?

CUT TO:

Wikimedia Commons

The ensuing slaughter is actually pretty gruesome, and that’s coming from someone who watched the Walking Dead premiere without even blinking (because I’m dead inside). One man, Leodes, begs for mercy, but Odysseus kills him anyway. Eurymachus begs for his life; Telemachus murders him real good.

Somewhere in there, a goatherd and suitor-sympathizer name Melanthius sneaks out through the smoke-ducts to grab weapons. Literally the only stratagem Odysseus had going into this was “lock up the weapons,” and he couldn’t even pull THAT off. Still, Eumaeus goes after him and manages to do some brutal, super excessive justice.

Athena has been sitting on the sidelines this whole time. She tells Odysseus to really let loose, to drum up some of the fighting spirit he was known for in Troy. At last, she decides he’s worthy of her help. She sends in the eagles. It’s just like in Lord of the Rings, except not really, because these eagles swoop down and kill everyone.

When the dust settles, only one man is left standing: it’s Phemius, the bard. Telemachus tells his father not to kill Phemius, because he’s innocent. He also tells him not to kill the herald Medon, unless he already killed him in the midst of all the bloodlust, in which case, well, accidents happen.

They gather the women. Of fifty handmaidens, twelve were consorting with the suitors in a traitorous, sexy way. Odysseus forces them to clean up the bodies, and then he has Telemachus slaughter them just to bring it all home.

The old nurse, Eurycleia, wants Odysseus to take a bath and put some clothes on—“It’s a scandal!”—but Odysseus says they must first cleanse the palace. Apparently that’s the kind of thing you can only do when you’re naked and covered in the blood of the guilty.

And just like that, it’s over! Everyone rejoices! Odysseus breaks down and cries tears of bittersweet joy!

That said, we’ve still got two chapters left, and if you listen real closely, you can actually hear Poseidon plotting to ruin everything.

Discussion questions:

1. Please discuss the various ways in which Athena is actually Gandalf. Use examples.
2. Hey, Odysseus, should we consider the gender politics at play here and stop to ask if maybe, just maybe, some of the handmaiden “sluts” were simply making the best of a b—WHOOPS NEVER MIND THEY’RE ALL DEAD.
3. That last chapter was so violent. Like the Red Wedding combined with a Cornucopia bloodbath, and the whole thing is directed by Guillermo del Toro. People say the media today is obsessed with violence, but given what happened to Melanthius (you can Google it), should we just assume that human beings have pretty much been violent garbage people since Homeric times?

Looking for the rest of our Blogging the Classics series? Check it out here! For all of Blogging The Odyssey, click here!