Elon Musk is taking his criticism of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey to new heights, claiming his AI platform ‘Grok Imagine’ will create a full-length adaptation of Homer’s epic by the end of 2026.
I do think it’s still fair to consider the very likely possibility that there’s a fair amount of truth contained within the story though (obviously not all the supernatural stuff, but still). That’s definitely the case with the Iliad; Troy was literally discovered in modern-day Türkiye in the 1800s.
All the crazy stuff in it is probably at least in part a result of its origin as an oral tradition instead of written text. The story being passed down across generations of memorizers without any hard reference to go off of tends to make for a really long game of telephone.
None of this is to humour Musk by the way. I just think this topic is interesting in general.
I’m going off of what real historians have hypothesized, not just baseless rhetoric. Nor am I claiming that the legends themselves are wholly factual (though as I’ve said it’s definitely possible to be partly the case). Feel free to read the Wikipedia article on it and draw your own conclusions.
Personally, I think it would be absurd if it were the case that in Late Bronze Age Greece — in or around the Bronze Age Collapse — they chose Troy (evidently not even a Greek setting) specifically to be the setting of an oral war story without there being a material reason for it, however minor. But that’s just me obviously.
I mean, “the Greeks have always been at war with the Persians” was always a good rallying cry. And arguing that the Persians are descendants of Troy would probably work as propaganda
We do know for a fact that the Achaeans and the Hittites had several conflicts over all of Western Anatolia and specifically control of Wilusa (Ilios / Troy) between the 15~14 and 12th c. BCE, and that the city got destroyed in battle during the collapse around 1180 BCE. We have a bunch of complaints from the Hittites about it.
I do think it’s still fair to consider the very likely possibility that there’s a fair amount of truth contained within the story though (obviously not all the supernatural stuff, but still). That’s definitely the case with the Iliad; Troy was literally discovered in modern-day Türkiye in the 1800s.
All the crazy stuff in it is probably at least in part a result of its origin as an oral tradition instead of written text. The story being passed down across generations of memorizers without any hard reference to go off of tends to make for a really long game of telephone.
None of this is to humour Musk by the way. I just think this topic is interesting in general.
New York City is a real place that exists, but that doesn’t make the Avengers films any less fictional.
I’m going off of what real historians have hypothesized, not just baseless rhetoric. Nor am I claiming that the legends themselves are wholly factual (though as I’ve said it’s definitely possible to be partly the case). Feel free to read the Wikipedia article on it and draw your own conclusions.
Personally, I think it would be absurd if it were the case that in Late Bronze Age Greece — in or around the Bronze Age Collapse — they chose Troy (evidently not even a Greek setting) specifically to be the setting of an oral war story without there being a material reason for it, however minor. But that’s just me obviously.
I mean, “the Greeks have always been at war with the Persians” was always a good rallying cry. And arguing that the Persians are descendants of Troy would probably work as propaganda
We do know for a fact that the Achaeans and the Hittites had several conflicts over all of Western Anatolia and specifically control of Wilusa (Ilios / Troy) between the 15~14 and 12th c. BCE, and that the city got destroyed in battle during the collapse around 1180 BCE. We have a bunch of complaints from the Hittites about it.