In Iliad, Hector was my absolute favorite character. There are countless likable qualities about him. He is very selfless and fights for the honor of his father and to protect the citizens. Achilles on the other hand, turned out to be the complete opposite of Hector. He never bothered about anyone else but himself. Even when his people were dying he stood still. The only reason he wanted to fight was for glory and he actually fought for personal revenge rather than fighting to protect his people. But as I was watching Troy, by the end I actually started perceiving Achilles differently from the book because of his involvement with Briseis. He seemed to have much more emotions than he did in the book, and that actually made me like his character. Although Hector still remained my favorite, I started liking Achilles as well. Did your perception of any of these two characters (or any other ones) change after watching the movie/reading the book? How so? Did you like them better in the book or the movie?
I absolutely liked him better in the movie. I don't even like Brad Pitt most of the time but I still ended up feelng for Achilles by the end of the book. At the same time I had the fact that they were twistings his relationship with Briseis to make him more human and likable to viewers. So while he was arrogant he wasn't as much the monster as he was in the book. Obviously this always happens when you turn a book, especially a Greek classic such as this, into a movie. Overall I liked the book better then the movie, but when it comes to Achilles I liked him a lot better in the movie, which I am sure was the movie crew's intention.
ReplyDeleteWell, Achilles was made into a much more respectable character in the movie. Whereas in the book he was petty and arrogant viewers could sympathize with him in the movie because of the romance invented between him and Briseis. Also Menelaus and Agamemnon were depicted as much more menacing and evil while they were almost a form of comic relief in the Iliad.
ReplyDeleteUntil I read our text I more or less liked Achilles. He has probably been the greek hero I was most familiar with and so what little I knew or read made it seem to me like he was in a way like a comicbook hero.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading our text and doing other reseach my opinion has changed and I do not like him as much. He does seem to be bent more on revenge than protecting his people, yet by the end of the book, I still do like him some. He is human and not a god and in the end he does come out of raging trance and show some mercy.
My perception of Achilles changed after I read the book. He is a lot more stubborn and shows more of a warrior status than in the movie. his arrogance makes him live by the warrior code with more passion than in the movie. he may seem like a cry baby by not fighting but that's assuming that the weight of the war rests on his shoulders. It is Agamemnon war not his. if the war does weigh on his shoulders than maybe Agamemnon shouldn't have treated him so harshly to damage his pride. he seemed out of line after reading the book but i can understand why also. he is an important character and one that should have been treated with importance.
ReplyDeleteI liked Achilles in both the movie and the book but I think I liked him in the book a little bit more. The book really captured his stubborness and arrogance much better than the movie did. Alot of people tend to frown upon Achilles actions but I liked him because he was not afraid to be who he was. He was an excellent warrior, prideful, and strong willed. Being in his position its kind of hard not to have a slight chip on your shoulder. I think that Hector and Achilles show the two different ways a great warrior can be but also show that people can change. Hector was a respectable warrior but did do disrespectful things (taking the armor) and Achilles was the stubborn self absorbed warrior but did eventually do good things (giving back Hectors body). To me the two were like a yin and yang to each other, different but alike. I really liked Achilles more in the book though because I feel it showed more of him better than the movie did.
ReplyDeleteIn the book, I hated Paris. He was a coward and weak. The movie showed him being weak, but put it in a way that made him less of a coward. His intentions with Helen were more pure in the movie than I thought in the book. Helen's husband, Menelaus, was another big change of character from the book to the movie. In the book he is a victim and in the movie he is a villian.
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