A to Z: Odysseus, Obviously

 

    Honestly, who else, right?  I mean, he's already come up quite a bit as-is.  And I actually have a whole lot more to say about how I've written him, despite that I actually don't like the character.  (What with him being a serial adulterer who claims to be a devoted husband, etc.)

    So, there are three main works I can go to for talking about how I've written Odysseus.  (Unless I want to also talk about the version of Odysseus that is Grant, lol.)  But I can't really go all-out anymore on any of these posts, because it turned out that there was enough "timed pressure" element to April A-to-Z to trigger my heart palpitations.  😭  So, gonna be lighter from here on out.  (Also doing the bulk on my phone and only grabbing the quotes on PC.  Somehow my heart doesn't flip out as much when I'm on the phone.)

    So, those three works are Are You A Better General Than Agamemnon?, The Martial Maenads (which I had hoped would be released by now, but it turned out that I got so involved in writing these posts that I've barely worked on finalizing it for release 😰), and book six of the Atalanta and Ariadne series.

    Going in that order, Odysseus naturally gets a lot of unique text in Better General, for example the bit I mentioned about Aineias when I was talking about Idomeneus.  But perhaps the most unusual and truly unique sequence is his feud with Palamedes.

    In the actual myths, as is well-known, Odysseus was in some respects responsible for the Trojan War, because it was his idea that all of Helen's suitors should swear an oath to fight to reclaim her for her husband should anyone steal her away.  Also generally pretty well known is that when the time came, Odysseus did not want to obey the oath that had been his own idea, and tried to get out of it by feigning madness, hitching up a horse and an ox to a plow and then plowing his own garden, only to have the person who came to get him prove that he was faking it by placing Odysseus' infant son in front of the plow.  The man who thus exposed Odysseus' act and forced him to join the Trojan War was Palamedes, and naturally enough the traditional myths established that Odysseus took lethal revenge on Palamedes during the long war.  (Though other traditions held that Palamedes survived, and some even claimed the Trojan Horse was his idea, rather than Odysseus'.)

    The thing is, there are actually a few couple ways that Odysseus was said to have done away with Palamedes....so, since I was working in an interactive medium, I figured "why not do both?"

    Naturally, I started with the most famous version:

         Palamedes sets out [on a mission to acquire provisions] with a single ship. It's not a long trip, at most two days in each direction, just short enough not to engender any concern, and just long enough to forget about the entire expedition by the morning of the fourth day, when Odysseus comes to see you in your hut, dragging a badly battered local youth with him as he does so.
         "What is going on?" you ask, looking at the young man with some concern. Odysseus isn't the type to beat someone just for the fun of it, but many of the other men are...
         "I caught this Trojan spy sneaking into the camp last night," Odysseus tells you. "He says he has come here to obtain information on our plans from a traitor who has been paid off with Priam's gold."
         For a moment, you don't know how to react. "Is that true?" you ask, looking at the young man. But he just looks back at you blankly. "Doesn't he speak our language?" you ask, looking back at Odysseus.
         "He doesn't," Odysseus says. "Only the Hatti dialect of the Trojan court." He smiles. "I had my concubine translate."
         There is much about his story that you find highly suspect, but you go ahead and call a meeting of the other princes regardless. Teukros can speak the tongue of Hatti (thanks to his Trojan mother, he explains), and he speaks to the captured spy for some time before finally announcing that the young man's words accord with those of Odysseus: "He says he came here last night to pick up a message from the traitor to take back to his king."
         "What sort of message?" Phoinix asks. "And who is the traitor?"
         "He said he doesn't know the name or even the appearance of the man he was to meet with, only the place to look for the message," Teukros answers. "Apparently, it was to be left under a pile of rocks beside the well."
         Half a dozen of the princes rush out to the well, yourself included, and you are all soon overturning every rock in its vicinity. Beneath one small pile of them, Menelaos uncovers a hinged message tablet of the sort often used in Hatti, but rarely seen in Hellas. Inside, carved into the soft wax, is a message in Achaian script. "Are there any scribes in the camp?" you ask, realizing that you have no idea what the message says.
         Talthybios the herald is sent for, as it turns out he knows how to read. He looks at the message uncertainly for a long time. "The man who wrote this is not accustomed to writing," he announces. "It is hard to make out what it means...but I believe it is information on our numbers, along with the names of our most important men and their weaknesses."
         Calls immediately go up to find the traitor and punish him. Odysseus interrupts by saying that surely the traitor must have his hut in the vicinity of the well, and a search party is quickly made up, going through every hut in that section of camp.
         It doesn't take long before Meriones appears before you, ashen-faced. "I believe I found something," he tells you, before leading you to Palamedes' hut. There, in a shallow hole in the floor, is a bag of golden rings, beads and other trinkets. "When I looked underneath his pallet, I found a spot of recently disturbed earth," Meriones explains. "When I investigated there..." He pauses, looking at you uncomfortably. "There has to be some mistake," he says. "Palamedes is my kin--his mother was a daughter of Catreus, and sister of Menelaos' mother. I cannot believe he would do such a thing."
         You hesitate to say anything in response. It does seem implausible at best that Palamedes would turn on everyone, and yet you have no doubts that Palamedes is one of the few princes in the camp who is able to interpret letters without the aid of a scribe, and he is certainly clever enough that if he was a traitor, he would want the spy to retrieve his message while he was safely away from the camp to look innocent. And yet, you are also certain that Odysseus, too, is capable of reading and writing without the services of a scribe, and you have often noticed that those two do not get along...
         You take the bag into custody as evidence, and call back the rest of the assembly, telling them what was found. "We will do nothing for now," you say, "and when Palamedes returns we will all convene to learn the truth of the matter. Until then, keep the Trojan spy locked up and away from all other people."

    At the conclusion of the trial--in the course of which Palamedes explains the source of Odysseus' grudge against him, and assures you that Odysseus is fully capable of having prepared the 'evidence' against him--you're given the choice to exile or execute Palamedes, to execute both Palamedes and Odysseus, to consult the gods and do as they command, or just to kill the Trojan spy and have done with it.  If you choose just to kill the Trojan spy, then the following year, there's another event that builds on the less well-known version of the death of Palamedes...

         You are in your hut one morning, planning the next stage of the campaign (as if there is anything to plan other than "attack the Trojans again"?) when Diomedes enters with a cheerful smile.
         "I've been thinking about our supply problems," he tells you.
         "Oh? Which supply problems?" you ask. Except for always needing more food than you typically have on hand, you didn't think there were all that many problems. And there are always slaves to trade for food...
         "The lack of food, of course," Diomedes tells you. "Particularly the lack of meat. Fighting men cannot survive on grains alone, after all."
         "This is true, but if we kill our herds, we won't have any sources of milk or eggs." It is, after all, a dilemma faced by everyone, warlord or farmer alike.
         "That's what I was thinking about, you see," Diomedes goes on. "A way to get some meat without killing the herds--and without risking running into angry Trojans by going hunting."
         You just watch him expectantly, fearing that anything you say at this point is going to make you sound like an idiot.
         "We have all the fish in the sea literally just outside our camp," Diomedes continues with a smile. "All you need to do is order a few of our men on a trip to catch some of them. Just one day, and we can add greatly to the camp's food stores."
         "That's an excellent idea," you agree. "I'll make the arrangements right away."
         Diomedes smiles, and immediately suggests a party consisting of himself, Odysseus and Palamedes, explaining that fishing is not as simple as it sounds, and a clever mind is needed to have the greatest success at it. You aren't completely convinced by that explanation, but you have to admit that as the king of an island nation, Odysseus probably knows more about fishing than most of the other princes.

    Naturally, if you agree to Diomedes' suggestion of sending the three of them, only Diomedes and Odysseus return, and after a long-winded explanation from Odysseus, you learn that somehow Palamedes fell off the boat and drowned. 😰  Thankfully, there are other groups you can send.  If you didn't get either of them killed off on the first day, sending Achilles and Aias of Salamis can net you a massive number of fish, and another choice on the first day can recruit a son of Poseidon for your army, so if you did that you can not only gain a lot of fish from this event, but also be assured that the god of the sea will send more whenever you need!  And if you didn't get Thersites killed on the first day, you can send him with Diomedes and Odysseus, which will also result in only Diomedes and Odysseus returning. 😅

    The next event in the feud between Odysseus and Palamedes is actually not at Odysseus' instigation, because the following year (if you didn't let Odysseus and Diomedes drown Palamedes) you find that the Ithacan soldiers are suddenly gambling all the time, with these strange little dotted cubes.  (Because yes, one of the things sometimes said about Palamedes is that he invented dice.  Though it's also sometimes said it was knucklebones he invented, which is blatantly not the case in the Iliad, since Patroclos talks about playing knucklebones as a boy.)

    As this was already brand new territory, I was free to invent all kinds of results of this scheme.  If you confront Palamedes directly, this happens:

         Palamedes frowns before answering. "I am sorry my actions have worried you," he says, "but you must understand that I fear for my life. You have not been made aware of most of the attempts Odysseus has made to be rid of me, but after a battle in which a spear thrown by one of his men came very close to ending me, what could I do but attempt to protect myself from his machinations in whatever way I could? I thought winning over his men and hopefully inclining them against attacking me was my best method of survival."
         "Is this still just his grudge over you exposing his feigned madness?" you ask.
         "I have done nothing else to earn his hatred," Palamedes assures you. "Odysseus is not a man who is capable of forgiveness. So long as he is here, my life is in jeopardy."
         You feel your resolve wavering even before Palamedes begins to list Odysseus' many actions against him over the past two years. Eventually, you concede entirely: it is plain to you that Odysseus will stop at nothing to murder Palamedes, and as the leader of all these many men, it is your place to prevent that from happening.
         The action gives you no pleasure, but you call Odysseus into your hut the next morning and explain to him that you are sending him back to Ithaca, without his troops. Much to your surprise, he takes the news astonishingly well. In fact, he seems downright pleased to be sailing away the next day, even though it means his dishonor and that he gains only a tiny fraction of the spoils he has rightfully earned. Perhaps there was a grain of truth to his many laments about missing his wife and son? 

    On the other hand, if you warn Odysseus about the obsessive gambling Palamedes has created in his men and the dangers that might cause, or ask his buddy Diomedes to keep watch over Odysseus in case Palamedes was up to anything sneaky with inventing these dice things, then this happens:

         By a few weeks later, you had almost fully forgotten it had happened at all, until one of your men comes running to tell you that he had just been to the site of the old well that had been dug soon after the army arrived (which had been ill-placed and dried up almost immediately) where the body of Palamedes has been found, half crushed by rocks and dirt.
         In your bones, you cannot shake the feeling that Odysseus was responsible, but you cannot prove it, and have to let him go on without penalty.

    And now that I'm thinking about it, the whole "falling down a well" thing was probably also one of his fates in the original myths.  (It's been some time since I consulted the reference texts on this portion of the war...)  But this time, too, you can pick choices that will keep both men in your camp, allowing the feud to continue onwards...which the next year can erupt unexpectedly in the wake of capturing an Egyptian fleet that came to aid Troy.  (There is no myth of the Egyptians sending aid to the Trojans, but it makes sense considering that Troy was a Hittite territory and Egypt had a lot of dealings with the Hittites...though as those dealings were not all friendly, it might also make sense for the Egyptians to send aid to the Greeks!)

         Thankfully, the Egyptians were not expecting to be waylaid on the water, and you are able to capture the entire fleet. It is not a huge fleet--only a dozen ships--but it carries not only soldiers being sent to aid Priam in his war, but also food, fine new weapons, and a great deal of gold.
         The food and weapons are added to the camp's general stock, and the gold is divided up among the many princes who took part in the battle. But there is debate over what to do with the captured Egyptians.
         "We must send the captives back to Egypt," Palamedes insists at the assembly you call to debate the question. "We cannot afford war on two fronts, and Ramses has many more men than these few that he could send if we should anger him. If we return them with no further casualties to their number aside from those who died in the initial conflict, along with a message reminding him of the justice of our cause, I doubt he will intervene again."
         "Ramses will not be expecting his men to return until he hears news of the war ending," Odysseus says, shaking his head. "He will think nothing of their absence, therefore. We should send them unarmed and unarmored into the city, the faster to reduce its supplies of food. Without their weapons and armor, they will have little to contribute to the city's defense." He frowns, and glances at Palamedes. "Of more immediate concern, in my opinion, is the fact that one of our number has taken far more than his share of the gold."
         "I noticed no such imbalance," you say, having supervised the division personally.
         "The amount taken was even, but a certain prince from Euboia connived to take items of far greater value than every other prince received."
         "That isn't--" you start to say, but you can get no further before Diomedes interrupts you.
         "I noticed it, too," he agrees. "A gold diadem for every ring another man received, a golden necklace for every bead in another man's stores..."
         "That is entirely untrue," Palamedes says coldly, "and these base accusations cheapen us all."
         For a moment, there is only silence, then Diomedes frowns. "I hate to disagree with what might ordinarily be wise counsel from Odysseus," he says, shaking his head, "but we cannot trust to the Trojans not having stockpiles of weapons and armor--nor can we assume that they will not be able to receive more arms by water from Hattusa. No, the only thing we can do is kill the Egyptians, or they will make our fight harder. As Odysseus said, Ramses won't be expecting to hear from them until the war is over, so by the time he could learn we had killed them, we would already be sailing home. And he would not be stupid enough to try invading all of Hellas to avenge a number of troops he would consider paltry."
         You bite your lip. All three suggestions regarding the fate of the Egyptian troops have merit. And you don't even want to think about the accusations of greed, let alone acknowledge them further. "Does anyone else have any opinions regarding the best fate for the Egyptians?"
         "Why should we send Ramses his men back for free?" Achilleus comments, with a laugh. "Get him to pay us for their safe release! And tell him to hurry, because when we run out of the food they brought, they won't be eating any of ours." He gestures at Odysseus and Palamedes. "And send these two away with them," he adds, "before their hatred of each other can get the rest of us killed. It's bad enough I'm here risking my life over a runaway wife. I don't want to add to that risk because two old men have a grudge." Many of the youngest men in the assembly nod their assent to his words.

    (If you got Achilles killed on the first day, then Antilochos presents the same idea, though in a more polite and civil way.)  You have to agree with one of the four of them, and that means you have to side with him about how to handle the feud:  at the end of the event, the matter is dropped if you side with Palamedes, Palamedes is killed if you side with Odysseus or Diomedes (because they've planted massive amounts of stolen gold in his hut), and both Palamedes and Odysseus are sent back to Greece if you side with Achilles (or Antilochos).  However, one of your choices the previous year can lead to both Palamedes and Odysseus being guarded, which prevented the gold thing coming up, so there's still more to the feud, though the next event doesn't directly involve Odysseus, just his good buddy Diomedes seducing Palamedes' concubine while Palamedes is away from the camp for a few days.  This can lead to Palamedes' death if you return the concubine to him, or you can make an enemy of Diomedes in a couple of different ways (including taking the concubine for yourself, in a very Agamemnon-like move!), but it's pretty easy for Palamedes to survive this, allowing for one final event.

         Your latest attempt to cheat destiny and end the war now rather than in several years' time had seemed like a really great idea, even though it counted on both halves of the eternally quarrelling duo of Odysseus and Palamedes.
         As Palamedes is very clever with devices and contraptions (a regular Daidalos, really!), you had him working on creating a device that would look like one of the Hatti-style statues of gods, but could be moved and would speak. Meanwhile, since Odysseus is so very crafty and often seems able to persuade absolutely anyone to do absolutely anything, you had him in disguise as a local, ingratiating himself to the townsfolk in one of the few nearby settlements your army still hasn't raided.
         When the time came, Palamedes and a few others operated the device, with Odysseus among the crowd in the town square in an attempt to convince the people that their god had come to walk among them. Once they were certain that it was true, the 'god' was to demand to speak to their king, and whether old Priam came himself or delegated one of his sons to the task, your men were going to capture the Trojan royal and demand Helen in exchange for him.
         It should have worked.
         It really should have.
         Only it turned out that Phrygians or not, peasants or not, the people of that village were not stupid enough to believe that a column with a head and hands was a god, no matter what Odysseus had to say on the subject.

    In the battle that followed, a magnificent chariot was captured, and both Odysseus and Palamedes claimed it was their rightful spoil.  After listening to countless speeches (from them and their friends) about who truly deserves the chariot, you give it to a random relation of the King of Pherai, just because he happened to be the one who had done the most in the battle itself.  Neither Odysseus nor Palamedes likes the decision, but they seem to have accepted it.  But the next time there's a battle, that relation of the King of Pherai is thrown from the chariot and killed.  Automedon, Achilles' charioteer, examines the chariot and shows you two places where it had plainly been sabotaged.  As the damage in both places is slightly different, he judges that it might have been sabotaged by two different people.  So, in the end, you have the choice of executing or exiling one or both of them, and there's no option otherwise:  at the end of that event (in the eighth year of the war!) either Odysseus or Palamedes has to go, and possibly both of them can.  If Odysseus is gone but Palamedes remains, then Palamedes is the one to come up with the Trojan Horse (which is sometimes said to be his invention, after all), but if they're both gone, then so too is any option to get through the walls by means of the Trojan Horse!  (Not to worry, though, there are plenty of other methods.  Pretty much the only way to lose the war in the game is to get killed, or to let Menelaos get killed, which can only happen in a few very specific cases.)

    There are some other truly unique events that hinge on Odysseus--the theft of the Palladion, particularly--but I think overall I've said enough about Better General...

    Changing topics to The Martial Maenads...well, the main thing about his appearance there is that he desperately wants to be friendly with Eurysakes, because he genuinely regrets what happened to Aias and wants to be forgiven for having caused it.  (This is, I feel, in fitting with the text of the Odyssey...though as that is being narrated by the extremely unreliable Odysseus himself, perhaps it shouldn't be taken quite so seriously as a source...)  That and he is completely not surprised by the existence of Ariadne.  (And has met a fair number of his other bastards over the years...)  However, as I feel like I've already spent too long on this post, I think I'll just leave it there and not provide any quotes.

    Now, moving on to book six.  As I mentioned in talking about Hermione, there's a Spartan succession issue in book six, and of course Menelaos brought in Odysseus to be a judge.  And Odysseus is honestly kind of enjoying how uncomfortable proceedings are making Menelaos:

            “If I might be so bold,” Mantides said, trying to compose himself, “rather than allowing tempers to run any higher, perhaps we should postpone the judgment for a day or two.  I will make offerings to my gods, and see if either of the divine twins will send me a sign indicating the best choice to make at this time.  It is possible, after all, that the gods might feel that the bloodline of Lacedaimon has worn itself out, and needs replacing.”
            “The bloodline could always return in a generation or two as well,” Odysseus pointed out.  “Nikostratos could inherit for now, with the understanding that his eldest son would marry the eldest daughter of Orestes and Hermione.”
            Menelaos scowled.  “I don’t think I could rest peaceably in the house of Hades if I knew that my grandson and my granddaughter were going to marry each other.”
            Odysseus laughed.  “I can see your point,” he agreed, “but such a reunion of bloodlines should still be kept in mind as an alternative.”  Then he smiled almost wickedly.  “And let us not forget, of course, that Agamemnon has three surviving children.  The husband of either of his surviving daughters could inherit the throne of Sparta.”  Was that repetition of the word ‘surviving’ an attack on Mantides for being the assistant to Calchas, the man who had slain Iphigeneia upon the altar?
            “Ah, now that is true,” Menelaos agreed very readily.  At this point, it was clear to Mantides that Menelaos wanted to stop Orestes from becoming King of Lacedaimon out of sheer stubborn pride, if nothing else.
            “Only one of my sisters is married,” Orestes pointed out, “and Pylades is planning to inherit his father’s kingdom of Phocis, despite his earlier banishment.”
            “If necessary, your other sister could marry Nikostratos,” Odysseus countered.
            “Will you stop trying to cause more incest in my family tree?!” Menelaos roared at him.  “You’re supposed to be on my side here!”
            “And I am,” Odysseus replied, with a calm smile.  But there was laughter in his eyes.  Was he doing this just to watch Menelaos grow more and more frenzied in anger?  Mantides could understand the temptation, but it didn’t seem like very proper behavior from a so-called friend…

    But when Helen is "unexpectedly" kidnapped (again), Odysseus is much more realistic about prospect of the two of them heading off to rescue her personally than Menelaos is.

            “This might be more about me than it is about Queen Helen anyway,” Atalanta pointed out.  “They might just be using her as bait to capture me.  You heard what the kidnapper said, right?  That he didn’t plan on killing me yet.  That means he has some future use planned for me.”
            “He said he didn’t plan on letting [his ally] kill you yet,” Odysseus corrected her.  “The implications are very different.  I don’t think it’s at all safe to assume that this is entirely about you.  However, I don’t doubt that he purposefully let you see him in order to ensure that you would want to retrieve the fair Helen personally.”
            “So that proves she shouldn’t do it,” Menelaos declared firmly.  “That’s settled.  You two girls will remain here and guard the city while Odysseus and I rescue Helen.”
            “I don’t think the two of us, at our age, could do so alone,” Odysseus sighed.  It was quite obvious to Atalanta that he didn’t even want to try.  But he wasn’t going to have to, so that was fine.

    Overall, though I don't have many good quotes to share because they're too wrapped up in the plot.  However, one big thing is that Odysseus genuinely wants to be a good father to Ariadne, even though she hates him.

    In other words, I've tried to give him a little more depth and nuance than, say, the Athenian tragedians, who mostly treated him as the epitome of evil.