I watched Helen of troy in TV some days ago and I just can't keep myself from writing this comment. I can accept almost all deviations from the book, an evil Agamemnon, a braindead Achiles, but I really can't understand what the scene of Agamemnon raping Helen adds to the story. And I thought Troy was a bad movie. I'ts disgusting.
Such a classic as the Iliad should be transferred to the screen with the same respect as the bible otherwise don't bother at all.
I didn't care for the rape scene either. Evidently the producers were trying to convey the image of Agamemnon as this total psycho. In the Iliad I didn't like him much, but he was no psycho. Agamemnon was also not the one who really killed Paris, or Priam.
just me,
Ishiagara
As Hector said, honor your gods, love your women, defend your country.
Well said. It was unnecessary. And I doubt Odysseus would have allowed such a thing.
shareOdysseus would have been offended, being a family man, but on the other hand, Agamemnon was the high king, and during the whole war, the only Greek with the guts to stand up to him was Achilles, though the miniseries never showed that.
just me,
Ishiagara
As Hector said, honor your gods, love your women, defend your country.
Achilles didn't stand up to Agamemnon because of principles. He was a sulky spoilt overindulged baby with a grandiose view of his own importance. Aside from Achilles sulking over the loss of Briseis what grounds did anyone have to stand up to Agamemnon? What evil or injustice had he done to them that he must be challenged over?
As for Odysseus - he committed one of the worst acts of injustice against a fellow Greek who he accused of taking Trojan bribes. Odysseus was jealous of his ability to get food and planted money to then have him stoned for treason. I don't think he would be making judgements on what Agamemnon should and shouldn't do....
What evil did Agamemnon do? Oh, just a little thing like invading a sovereign nation on a phony pretext. He had to lie about Helen being kidnapped because it was the only way to get the Greek kings to abide by their oath about rescuing her, were she abducted. If the kings knew the truth, they would have have gone to war and Agamenmon knew that.
Then there was that "little thing" of murdering his own daughter. Yep, Aggie sure was a nice guy. Achilles should have slit his throat and that would have been the end of the Trojan War. But at least Aggie got his in the end...in Greek Mythology, evil doers always did.
just me,
Ishiagara
As Hector said, honor your gods, love your women, defend your country.
"But at least Aggie got his in the end...in Greek Mythology, evil doers always did"
So did the people who murdered him!! And Hector got it as well as the rest of the Trojans. Thanks for admitting they were evil!!
He did NOT invade on a phony pretext! You must NOT mix up your fictional imagination of what happened with what actually happened in the Iliad! The Greek commanders would have attacked Troy anyway if your economic scenario comes into play...it wasn't just Mycenae that was being starved by Troy's monopoly!!
As to the death of Iphigenia...if you reread your Iliad you'll realise he didn't want to do it - the Greeks generals SUPPORTED the sacrifice and the Gods DEMANDED it. The evidence is the change in the wind immediately after! And perhaps you'd care to read the later Greek tragic plays where she was not killed but spirited away to serve as a priestess elsewhere. But even if she had not survived the sacrifice who is to deny the gods, hmmm....I mean they were on Greece's side.
So lemme guess...all murderers are simply doing the will of the gods? You're a pretty sick puppy, pal...you're on ignore from now on.
just me,
Ishiagara
As Hector said, honor your gods, love your women, defend your country.
I know I'm on "ignore" now...and I wasn't even being offensive. But I'll defend my opinion regardless. I do not say that "all murderers are simply doing the will of the gods". That's not a fair representation of what I said. I said that Agamemnon SACRIFICED Iphigenia because it was the will of the gods. I don't agree with human sacrifice but I'm also not a product of an ancient society that may have condoned the practice. When Priam abandoned his child on the hillside he too was obeying the will of the gods even though it was meant to kill the child.
You are not like your Trojan role model Hector, Ishiagara, you are more like Paris. When some gives you a blow you run away. Why come onto a board, pose controversial topics and then put someone on ignore who disagrees with you? I have not been rude to you nor said anything that I believe to be offensive. I have merely expressed a difference of opinion. For an intelligent person - your response is pretty amazing!!
Ok, i find myself agreeing with you now. Sacrificing Iphigeneia was indeed a terrible thing to do (human sacrifice was considered just as horrific to the ancient Greeks as it is to us today), but he did not just happily agree to it! I think thats one thing the mini series showed well- Agamemnon loved his daughter, and it was an agonising decision, but he had to do it. In that sense your parallel with Priam was very apt, because both fathers were forced into a heartbreaking decision against their will for the greater good. The only difference is that Agamemnon succeeded in his purpose, and Priam did not (and for some reason exposing babies on mountainsides was a far more culturally acceptable practice than blood sacrifice, although the result is essentially the same- see Spartan convention, for instance. Also, the device of the exposed child who is saved and brought up by wild animals/peasant foster parents constantly appears in Greek mythology, although human sacrifice does not, so we are often inured to the intention of the former while we remain disgusted by the latter.)
And although infanticide is a common motif in Greek mythology to represent the very worst act a person can commit (think how hated Medea was- Euripides' play came last in the dramatic competition because she did NOT get her just comeuppance!) it is indeed a different matter when it is commanded by the gods. Mere mortals are represented as being completely at the mercy of the gods, who can either purify murderers of blood guilt, or condemn them to eternal torment at their discretion.
Agamemnon therefore cannot simply be labelled a bad guy because of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. At least Aeschylus didnt seem to think so, and his Oresteia won first prize at the dramatic festival- if the Greeks had condemned Agamemnon the way that they condemned Medea, surely they would not have liked a trilogy which vindicated both him, and Orestes for avenging his murder?
One thing I have to set you straight about though, is that the sacrifice of Iphigeneia is nowhere mentioned in the Iliad. In fact Homer does not even seem aware of the existence of a daughter called Iphigneia, instead referring to Agamemnon as having three daughters- Chrysothemis, Laodike and Iphianassa.
"Give us this day our full band width, and deliver us from pop-ups..."
"Iphigeneia is nowhere mentioned in the Iliad"
That is one thing that the film got right! And Agamemnon was such an evil creep in the film I half expected it to be there! I have read that Chrysothemis is another name given to Iphigenia. Have you read "Warrior in Bronze" by George Shipway? He has a very interesting explanation for Iphigenia's sacrifice that would reinforce Ishiagara's hatred of Agamemnon. Interesting theory...
I think the Greeks were so disturbed by the story of human sacrifice that the later traditions "invented" the story of her being spirited away to Aulis as a priestess of Artemis. I remember reading how peaceful it was believed that the Minoans were until they found evidence of human sacrifice in a temple just before the explosion of Thera. How also do we explain the sport of bull-leaping? Human sacrifice.
I dont think that Chrysothemis can be another name for Iphigeneia, because in Sophocles' Elektra Chrysothemis is living at the palace AFTER the sacrifice of Iphegeneia. It has been suggested that Iphianassa (from the Greek iphi- 'strong' and the femenine form of anax- 'lord' or 'ruler', meaning 'strong mistress') is Homer's name for Iphigeneia ('strong born'), but that the tradition of Agamemnon sacrificing her either did not exist then or not in that part of the Greek world (Ionia).
"Give us this day our full band width, and deliver us from pop-ups..."
Thanks for the heads up! I learn something new everyday! I'm now net surfing for her...she did not agree with Electra's actions and didn't support her sister's desire for revenge. I'd like to know in what order the children were born and their ages when Agamemnon left...
share???? Bull leaping as human sacrifice? That's really dumb. That was a competition of some sort. QA coming of age between males. The details aren't at all clear from the images, but it certainly wasn't a form of sacrifice. The evidence that you speak of is skeletons with knife marks on them. That has nothing to do with bulls or bull leaping. You're confusing your facts with the Minotaur legend where they give Daedelous to the minotaur as a sacrifice. The Carthaginians practiced it into the 2nd century. The Romans practiced it on rare occasions, and the Celts practiced it well into the first century BC. The Germanians practiced it even longer. In fact, they practiced it for so long that you could say it wasn't even practicing anymore. OK. Bad pun. Point is... that I agree with you on that point actually. The Greeks defined themselves in many ways by what they were not (barbarians) and the idea that there great king would sacrifice his own daughter must have been hard for them to take. They had changed a lot since the Bronze Age. But the Minoans do still come off as a very peaceful culture. Sadly enough, human sacrifice doesn't make people as bloodthirsty as people would like to think it would. It was just another form of worshiping the gods. And they haven't actually "proved" the human sacrifice idea either. There has been some suggestion that those knife marks were the Minoans cleaning bones of flesh as part of a burial ritual instead of a human sacrifice. Seems like it may be looking too hard for a positive explanation to me, but the point is it isn't proven.
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNK
wow, you people really have time to loose, don't you ?
Please get a grip.
The Illiad, the Odyssea are BOOKS, they are epic poems written by Homer (not Simpson), a GREEK poet, so of course the Greeks are better shown than the Trojans in his poems.
These books are fiction like the Bible is. They are telling, on an epic way, stories that were conveyed by travellers in time and society where story-tellers were famous.
It's even probable that Homer is more than one poet. And the attacks on Illium were numerous because it was settled on a strategic point on the sea, they were taxing the boats, that's why the Greeks wanted the death of the city.
And according to recent studies and discoveries, the Greeks had unforseen alliess by people from the east, that also wanted a slice of the Trojan cake. And it's because of that, that Troy felt, the Greeks got some help, otherwise they were not that good.
And because the bible and the poems by Homer are so well written, so world famous, of course they attrack the movie-world people. And it's all FICTION.
OK ?
So whatever happened to Helen, and to Troy, and to all the others has nothing to do with gods ! that's fiction as well.
We were discussing a point of literary interest concerning the translation of an epic poem to the screen. I dont believe at any point it was asserted that the subject matter of this poem was 'true', we were simply trying to establish an accepted and consistent version of the myth (which is possibly a futile task with regard to any orally transmitted tale which was only recorded as text at a much later date). Nevertheless, we were having a rational and constructive discussion. You obviously had no intention of contributing to it in the same spirit. Please don't come here to rant supposed 'facts' at us. it makes you look far more ignorant than the people you are supposedly correcting.
Winning!
The Iliad as well as the Bible are not just fiction. The Greeks believed them to be true (Alexander the Great claimed he descended from Achilles). After Schliemann discovered the [supposed] Troy, there are little doubts left that the Iliad is just a fictional work.
It has been proven that in the Bible itself there are historical facts.
Human sacrifices were practised at least in Crete in 1500BC, archaeologists at Cnossos found unquestionable evidences of children bones on sacrifice altars. They were not common practises, like scarifying a horse or a bull, but extraordinary cases.
Agamemnon was a king who obeyed to his duty first. He needed the support of the Greeks and of the Gods to win the war so he thought of his people first. His chief fault was his overweening haughtiness, but, according to his other daughter, Electra, he was a loving father too.
We judge him today with modern measures. At that time for Homer he was the "divine" Agamemnon, never an "assassin".
Geez. He just said his opinions (with which btw I don't agree at all- it's with yours that I agree) but just because they's different from yours you call him 'sick' and put him to ignore? Honestly, lighten up.
omg just cause he expressed his opinion u put him on ignore? wow kinda sad there bud.
shareHector was a bloodthirstily murderer too.
And historians will tell you the business of Troy was the slave trade
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If you look at the whole mythology, Agamemnon $#!+-talked Artemis, and it was Artemis who withheld the wind. If you think about it more deeply, Artemis did not FORCE Ag to do anything--his punishment for blasphemy was to decide which was the lesser of two evils, killing his own daughter or calling off the war and losing political face. Obviously, being a family man was not a high priority of his.
Ag also did not get killed simply because of filicide. Clytemnestra got involved with a very odious relative of his who coveted the throne.
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I Agree the rape of helen was very brutal and detracted from the movie completly,they should not have put that in the movie at all and especailly in such grapic detail. very unnesseary and inapropreate!
shareApparently, nobody pays attention to detail.
During the rape of Helen we see Menalaus, running towards her as fast as he can to try and save her. Then, when he's being held back, watch his lips, he's yelling "I love her"
the rape of Helen has little to do with the actual idea of the rape. I think the whole reason for the rape was for both menealaus and the audience to realize that Menalaus loved her, he really did.
Actually, according to the captions he is yelling "Leave her" but one has to assume that he really did love her.
shareWhat do you mean by graphic?
shareYa i hated the rap scene i was like crying i felt so bad for Helen! yes i know i didnt like agamemnon either according to the illiad but he is not a complete phycho as he is portrayed in the movie. And yes Paris was shot with an arrow not killed by Agamemnon.
"Untill the day they burn my body, I love love you."
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ya i know.
shareWhy was Helen raped at all? I thought only Cassandra was raped by Ajax minor well her and the other women prisoner's in the book.
shareThe way the producers made it, Helen was raped to show that she was just a toy. Yes, I know that "toy" is probably the *WORST* word I could of thought of, but that's how women were treated. All they were good for were wedding and bedding, even if it wasn't consensual. *shrugs* It may seem horrible to us now, but that's because nowadays women are treated equally. Back then, no one gave a $h!t about women's rights. Cassandra was raped too, and in the temple of Athena, the supposed patron goddess of Troy. But it all varies on how people end the Iliad. Some people say that nothing happened to Cassandra. Others say that Helen is thrown from the walls. It all depends on how the author (after Homer) decides to end the story. Don't believe me? I'm not surprised.
I'm not psycho, just a little loopy...
*~Es~*
I finally rented it and there was no nudity involved Helen and Agememnon were both covered it just the way he grabbed her and threw her on the table was kind of shocking.
shareI agree with webmiss.
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"The man who has two faces soon forgets which one is real."
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It's not "graphic" at all. It's just him dry humping her and making it look like he really is raping her. But that's what I saw. IDK.
I'm not psycho, just a little loopy...
*~Es~*
sienna guillory is hot therefore she should be naked
shareI think the Agamemnon in this version was much darker than the Agamemnon spoken of in the Iliad.
You're right, it's like he was a complete psychotic and I think the literal rape was a little unnecessary.
"Can't we have one meeting that doesn't end with us digging up a corpse?"
I don't feel it's unnecessary. I mean, it shows so many situations in those few seconds and most of them to do with Menelaus. How he really loves her, how he's essentially innocent of this whole thing, how his brother always made him feel less than. During the scene, I wasn't really thinking about Helen, I was more thinking about the fact that a man had to watch his own brother rape the woman he loved.
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www.myspace.com/ilove_elijahwood
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The house of Atreus was really cursed almost in every generation someone murdered their own brother, son or nephew even the gods of that time had it out for them.
shareThe rape of Helen is nothing, it would be much better if i could see at least Sienna's breasts... That woman is FIRE!!!
"I really Love this movie, and just because of Sienna"
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