I missed a few scenes here and there. So - was it made clear why Theseus ended up as more of a father figure to Helen, rather than taking her up on her offer? (since presumably he wanted to marry her one day.)
Also - did they ever really explain what the deal was with Helen parading naked for her hubby and all his friends? (Beyond a ploy for ratings, I mean.)
Who was shown killing Paris? Was it one of the leads, like Agamemnon or Odysseus? Or was it just some nameless soldier?
Agamemnon kills Paris
share1. Theseus chapter -- that was a watered down version. Obviously, Helen must've been a 15 or 16 year-old at the time Theseus 'abdcuted' her. Or maybe even younger. Now, if he played the dirty old man & ravished her, then Helen would no longer have been a virgin, all the other Greek cities would've ganged up on Athens. So for story purposes, it was best to have this "clean" relationship.
2. The standing 'naked' - I didn't quite catch the rationale for that one either, but I think, operative word here - "think" - it was to test the supposedly 'macho,' 'hetero' Greeks and their word to honor Helen and the Greek king who won her.
3. Paris - I think it was the dastardly Agammenon. He was the vilest of the vile scum, always skulking about; and of course that deed (and his sacrifice of Iphigenia) resulted in Clytemnestra hacking him to pieces as well!! Catharsis and pay-back time!! Good for her!!
1. According to the Greek myths, when Theseus abducted Helen, she was only a child. In this movie they show her much older. He eventually wanted to marry her, but she was rescued by her brothers Castor and Pollux. Pollux never killed Theseus.
2. In the movie she says that her husband Menelaus wanted her to do that. It never happened in the myths.
3. Agamemnom is shown killing Paris. In the myths, he is killed by an arrow shot with the bow of Hercules.
I was puzzled enough about the Helen parading naked scene when I watched, and rewound the tape to look for an explanation. In the bath, she explains that Menelaus required her to do it, to show the other kings the object of their pledge to unite in war. (I might have watched the parade scene again for another reason, but didn't want to bore my wife and a friend who was watching with us.) It actually did advance the plot, however out of character such a display would have been in ancient Greek society. Taking the story as the way the Trojans might have told it, it actually fits in, because like many other scenes, it shows the Greeks as villains.
Others answered your other questions well enough, so I'll skip them.
About the parading naked thing, I don't really get it either. I did read somewhere that it was in defiance, to show all the other men there what they couldn't have. I don't know.
shareyeah, everyone else did a good job in answering the first two questions...but i paid ATTENETION to the scene before that :D
3..Menalaous had her stand naked in front of all the Kings of the Agean Sea (and a few others)in order to show them that she was worth them swearing their lives to prtoect hers (you know, the alliance that Agammemnon and Odysseus used to bind all of Kings together). Menalaoss felt it was only honorable for everyone to have a look.
Exactly. That's about the same as I wrote. I'm puzzled about why people continued to be puzzled after I answered it, but your answer was a bit clearer than mine.
shareThe Theseus/Helen thing made absolutely zero sense the way this movie portrayed it. Women in ancient Greece were routinely married off between the ages of 12-14, sometimes even younger. So Theseus saying he wouldn't rape a child might be nice, but Helen would definitely not have been considered a child at that age. They should have gotten a little girl to play her at that point in the story. That said, its always good to see Stellan Skaarsgard!
shareIt's really just very censored. In the myth Theseus takes Helen as a child. And there are different tellings but the general belief is that he rapes her. And even one theory is that she has a daughter by him that her sister later "adopts" in order to keep the secret that Helen is no longer a virgin. I don't remember it all at the moment.
A lot of the movie was very "romanticized" I guess is the right word. No one wants to hear about pedophiles or the good guys being rapists. In the myth Helen meets Paris because she is suppose to play "host" for her husband while he is away. Again two different tellings, one is that Paris rapes her and then takes her away and the other that he just abducts her.