Trey Explains the Historical Context and Inaccuracies of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:01]Oh, Trey, any tidbits over on Odyssey controversy?

[00:00:05]>> Oh, there's tons. I'm like think I'm contemplating making a video kind of covering at least some of it where there's a lot of stuff. Like I was when the trailer came out, I kind of didn't like the armor designs. I kind of didn't like the the look of the movie. The look of the movie looked too much like Dune, you know, it looked like stark blacks and whites and grays and drab colors and stuff and like I don't know if you're doing something set in like the Bronze Age, you have so much you could have so much fun doing cool colors and heraldry. It's like Game of Thrones.

[00:00:36]You know, Game of Thrones where like you want the fun armor and the fun colors and all that. Like it just makes it more interesting.

[00:00:42]>> Trey, I want to ask you why everything has to be dour and depressing.

[00:00:45]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, everyone wants to go dour and depressing with everything now and it's just like we don't need that, you know.

[00:00:51]>> Everything's That's kind of Nolan's That's kind of Nolan's thing. Trey, have you ever seen Brad Pitt's Troy? I watched it recently. I really liked it.

[00:00:57]>> yeah. I I I I there's parts of me that like Brad Pitt's Troy. Like the like it it Like I actually really like Sean Bean as Odysseus in that movie. He is like I I he's very he's like barely in the movie. He actually does like a pretty pretty fun Odysseus performance. Um where they have the [ __ ] D-Day landers. They have like the little They like open up like It's there like there's some very great performances in that Troy movie. Like the guy playing Menelaus and and Agamemnon, they're nailing it. Um like Sean Bean's nailing it as always.

[00:01:29]The Peter O'Toole, what is his Sneakers O'Toole? What is his name? As as King Priam, he does a great performance there. Like there's some there's some strong performances. Like there's stuff that like I don't know. I I do a little differently, you know, but >> But is that controversy? I mean, like hav- having bad costumes, is that really controver- Like what what's the controversy?

[00:01:52]>> the controversy I guess is is the people being racist, you know, the people that are like, they don't like black people.

[00:01:57]>> Oh, and and and being anti-trans.

[00:02:00]>> And it and it anti like Okay, the controversy I'm interested in focusing on is that Nolan talked about the the translation of the Odyssey that he used is uh a scholar named Emily Wilson. And she she a couple years ago she published um a very I I actually really really like Emily Wilson's translation of the Iliad and Odyssey. It's very good. And she um she's a a classicist, a a Greek who who translated and put a lot of thought into her translation and tried to make it for her own reasons more simplistic language. Like a lot of older translations go like with the thou and the arts and it sounds like Shakespeare or King James Bible kind of thing. And she was like she argued that like that's not how Homer would have sounded like to an ancient Greek. And then also like it makes it not accessible to us and it like clouds kind of the way that you interpret the text, you know? Like >> Yeah, I I like I like that. I like that approach. Yeah.

[00:02:58]>> Yeah, and and people have people heard her talk about that. And like they hate her for several reasons like that they think that she has cheapened uh the Iliad and the Odyssey by using more simplistic language. Um and like for example like she translates There's a word that's attached to Odysseus. He's polytropos. Like he's he's a man of many turns. He's a man of many twists. He's a And she she translates that as complicated man. I'm going to tell you a story of a a complicated man.

[00:03:29]And like there's some four-chaners that just like post her translation alongside a whole bunch of other ones like older ones. And like look at this woke like like modern liberal like professor woman trying to cheapen the Odyssey. They like the movie got criticized for having like the word daddy in it. Like they like a like >> Yeah.

[00:03:50]>> We talked about that briefly, right? For us it's that whatever.

[00:03:54]>> Yeah. Um >> And her translation has daddy. It's used once.

[00:03:58]>> First of all, she only uses it once and it's used by a child for a word that is a word that is basically the Greek ancient Greek equivalent of like papa or daddy like or and and and here's the thing is translators before her have done the same thing and had no criticism, you >> Yeah, yeah, of course.

[00:04:16]>> Um it's it's >> know, it's she's she's a woman and it's it's it's modern.

[00:04:20]>> It basically boils down that she's to the she's a woman with tattoos and a professor and people conservatives hate that, you know, because conservatives don't like that and and like there's like there were there I saw this tweet that was saying that she inserted gay relationships into the Iliad. Um like she like she like her translation emphasized gayness in a way that >> Wasn't it with Achilles? The first The first time I've ever heard about Greeks being gay.

[00:04:49]>> Yes.

[00:04:50]>> [laughter] >> Yes. Like that's the thing. It's like I got to I hate to break it to you, but >> First of all, like I have I have like I cuz I'm planning to do a video about this like what what are they citing? Like what's what's your example of of her inserting gay relationships into the story? And like I have found no example. Like they're just saying it's in there and I'm just like what's in there is what's in Homer originally. So I don't know what you're talking about.

[00:05:16]Homer is very like in ancient times people were unclear about the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, like the two heroes, the two warriors. Um like it is intentionally vague in Homer. People in ancient times, like in in classical Greece, debated what the nature of the relationship was.

[00:05:35]And the majority opinion in ancient times was that they were like a same-sex relationship, that it was a romantic relationship with in um with an like a a minority who claimed that it was just a relationship between friends.

[00:05:49]>> Well, this this is what I find about almost any story. Almost any story with two characters, >> [clears throat] >> people start talking about them romantically. It doesn't matter what story it is.

[00:06:00]Like, do I think that when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, >> Yeah.

[00:06:07]>> he had the Oedipus complex with Hamlet and his mom? I don't.

[00:06:11]>> I don't.

[00:06:11]>> But but everybody is just like there's an Oedipus thing, he wants to [ __ ] his mom.

[00:06:17]Like that that's just like there. But But it's only because there's characters there. There's characters like you put two characters on screen, on page, on stage, everyone's like, are they romantic? You know, you put Spock and Kirk, >> Yeah.

[00:06:32]>> and and and everyone's like, they're gay.

[00:06:34]You know, like, okay, [laughter] well, like is any All the characters when you pop them on stage together, everyone's like, are they going to [ __ ] Like that's just human nature is to take any story >> Since ancient times.

[00:06:47]>> Like that's that's it. Bert and Ernie, they're [ __ ] Like it doesn't matter what story it is.

[00:06:54]>> [laughter] >> It's the first thing that people do.

[00:06:57]Oh, like I remember when like the Jon and Sansa stuff, like Sansa's going to arrive at the wall, and like immediately everybody's like, Jon Sansa shipping, are they going to get married? Like those are the first things like >> And and they find evidence for it. They find evidence. They're like they're like, yes.

[00:07:15]>> Sansa had a crush on Royce when he [snorts] was visiting Winterfell, and he kind of looks like Jon, and then Jon has a thing for redheads, so he has a thing for Sansa. Like it's like >> Tre, I got to call you out on this. Tre, I got to call you out on this cuz you you you kind of pushed the Jon Satin thing a little.

[00:07:31]>> People I I'm not I am not a I don't actually believe in the Jon Satin >> just being funny. I see people >> Cuz it's such a fan fic thing.

[00:07:37]>> It's As much as that is really funny, and I see the funny fan art of like the little gay [clears throat] John Satin thing. Like people have hyper fixated on it where they're like in the battle in the battle that Satin's introduced. It's like John calls him pretty or something like that or in his mind refers to Satin as attractive or pretty or prettier than most girls he's ever met or something like that. And people have interpreted it as like, "Why is John thinking that?

[00:08:01]Why is John thinking that? It's a battle. Why is he focusing on how attractive Satin is?" And it's like that's just George describing the scene, you know? Like Like he has like Arya describing things very poetically and beautifully and like that doesn't mean Arya like like is is aware of like the beauty of this the arches of Braavos or something. You know, like like Arya's a little kid like Like I think it's just George describing the scene, but >> Preston wasn't there for the Duncan Lionel stuff that we saw on Twitter all the time during Night of the Seven Kingdoms. You know what I'm saying?

[00:08:32]>> Right.

[00:08:33]>> But I'm I'm just like I'm saying it's it's just on a base level. Like I don't even like that no matter what characters are on screen, people think people are going to envision them romantically.

[00:08:45]>> People like like yeah. People like you see two attractive people, you want to put them together. That's just human nature. Got to just do that.

[00:08:53]Oh.

[00:08:53]>> Trey, I need to send you the the Odyssey mini-series um with Armand Assante. Have you ever seen it? Cuz if not, I can send it to you right >> it in high school. I watched it in high school. I'm going to probably watch it again cuz I cuz I'm in like an Iliad Odyssey kind of mood just cuz it First of all, Emily Wilson's translation is one that people [ __ ] hate. Like these white these thing that right-wingers have like decided that they hate they hate. Like that that it's like she's destroy There was all these posts about it. I like took screenshots cuz it was like this crazy thing online where you see all these people coming out of the woodwork going like, "She's destroying Western civilization and stuff." And and you're just like, "It's a It's a translation of the Odyssey.

[00:09:31]Like calm the [ __ ] down. Like you could read older ones still, you know? You could You could read T. E. Lawrence's translation. You can read like the 1800s one. Like it it it didn't destroy anything, you know, like but yeah, yeah, yeah, like it's it's funny. And it's funny people trying to act like ancient Greeks are like did not like that that as if like making ancient Greece gay is like is bad. Like it's a terrible like how dare you make the ancient Greeks gay? Like that is horrible.

[00:10:00]>> I think it's almost it's weirder that in 300 they tried to make the the Spartans >> the boy lovers line.

[00:10:08]>> Right? That was the weird thing is when they tried to make the Spartans straight in 300. I was like, what are you doing?

[00:10:12]>> They have that they have that line where they call Athenians those Athenian boy lovers. I remember this. And it's like you're claiming Xerxes is right.

[00:10:22]>> You know, androgynous and all this kind of stuff like like the Spartans were like [laughter] it's Like it's like the pinnacle of gayness.

[00:10:31]>> For Spartans in particular, it's very jarring where Spartans were probably the gayest of the Greek like city-states.

[00:10:39]From what we know about them, there's this whole like Spartan mirage kind of thing where you don't know much about the Spartans from like their own sources. But like there's a thing that Spartan men apparently had a difficult and this is probably like, you know, slander for like from like Romans or something like that. But Spartan men had difficulty having sex with women. This is a this is a thing. And they had that their wives had to dress up as a man for them to be able to to perform sexually.

[00:11:04]This is of course like a joke in antiquity. This is something that people made up, but it's very indicative of like the idea that people had of Spartans at that time that Spartans were a very gay culture. Um >> That's So, by the way, on a little tangent, what I think is rather strange about um uh people's perceptions about uh heterosexuality and homosexuality in antiquity is people act like it was either completely open and accepted or you know, um or or it didn't exist at all.

[00:11:42]Which when when it was it's very clear that they were still having the same battles we had we have today. Like when when when when they're when they bring up that Nero had a boyfriend at one point, like that it was in Suetonius, like it's clearly being used as a way to insult Nero.

[00:12:03]You know, like no one was you know, so like clearly there is a a segment of the society that is against homosexuality and there clearly is a there's a segment of society that thinks it's fine. And so I always thought it was funny like like when they bring up like the symposium and they're talking about these philosophers like in their conversation they're completely fine with homosexuality and many of them are homosexuals, but that's one little that's one little segment.

[00:12:30]>> Right. You're you're getting you're seeing like the aristocratic opinion of like the philosopher. You're right that like it is a problem of sources where we don't know what the common person felt about this kind of stuff. Um yeah, yeah.

[00:12:42]It's very clear >> You can look at it and they were very diverse society with with opinions all over the place, you know.

[00:12:48]>> From like the best the best I think that you can get is from like plays which are for like the common people and like you have instances where characters in plays say that they prefer men over women or something. Like there's like this like assumed bisexuality of like the society and that certain people had an inclination for one of the other. Like I think that's the >> Right, but you never know like like modern Indian cinema shows these incredibly progressive people running all over the place, dancing, having their musical numbers and their society is incredibly strict, you know, or like you could you know, or you could take the reverse and I mean not so much now, but for for many many years they wouldn't show interracial relationships on TV very much. Even though they existed in society all over the place. Or like men and women sleeping in the same bed. Like everybody slept in the same bed, but on TV they were in separate beds. And when no one lived like that, you know?

[00:13:48]So I don't know if if entertainment necessarily is a mirror of what the common person is is thinking or doing.

[00:13:57]>> That's true. And you're right that all of our sources are from like aristocratic, upper class, like philosopher type. You can have like Greek like there's Greek art and like ancient art that depicts like sex acts and stuff. So you get to see like what was the norm? Like but is that even the norm? Like when you go into Pompeii and you see like the sex acts depicted in like frescoes above the beds and stuff.

[00:14:20]Like is that what the average person did? Like I don't know.

[00:14:24]>> That's the thing. I mean you could take something that's very very common. I mean I I like I use the example of um of fake boobs, right?

[00:14:32]>> Yeah.

[00:14:34]>> Fake boobs are in fact all over the place. And all of us watch movie and entertainment and porn with people with women with fake boobs. And but would you would would you just say that like would you regularly say if somebody said like, "Oh, do women normally get fake boobs in society?"

[00:14:55]I'd be like I you you it's like you still don't think it's like a normal thing because you have this like idea of this is how many women I know in my life.

[00:15:04]And the number of fake boobs is down here.

[00:15:07]And so at least the ones I know about, you know? And so it's like you know, I'm like, "Well, you know, I could maybe argue that like 2% or 3% of the women I know have fake boobs." So I don't think I wouldn't consider fake boobs like a regular normal part of modern society despite the fact that every actor on TV and every porn person that's 2% of whatever 1% of America is literally millions of women with fake boobs, right?

[00:15:39]It's it's it's odd things of like what is considered normal and what is considered like commonplace and stuff like that. Uh >> Yeah. And it's very it's very it's hard to you're right for most sources that survive it's to parse that out like what are the norms.

[00:15:55]Um yeah.

[00:15:57]Mhm.

[00:15:59]>> That that Nolan >> I I I just got somebody I see somebody in the comments saying I think people took issue with Wilson interpreting all the servant helper roles as slavery and he's using girls instead of women for shock value where the text doesn't call for it. I've taken a screenshot of this this this right here cuz this is an example of somebody misinterpreting what Wilson's translation actually says.

[00:16:19]Wilson Okay, Wilson's translation previous translations would translate stuff as like [ __ ] or [ __ ] for certain words.

[00:16:27]And Wilson has gone into the Greek and been like if you actually look at the the Greek the the wording is neutral. It does not have a negative connotation either way. It it says women women that slept with men or something like that.

[00:16:40]And like older common older translators have decided to translate it with this negative um like blaming the women you know like a >> Right because women that sleep with men are [ __ ] you know, so therefore you know, but that is why I have the sentence, yeah.

[00:16:57]>> Like Wilson points out that like previous translations would translate stuff as servant and in the original Greek it's slave. Like you know, that's an important distinction. Like they're not like it's not like what's that what's that show that British people watch? Uh Uh >> Oh, are you are you being served?

[00:17:14]>> Downton Abbey.

[00:17:14]>> Downton Abbey. Hades. Yes, yes, Downton Abbey.

[00:17:17]>> No, they're not like little maids that go into your house. Like no, these are like these are people these are enslaved people that are property who exist for the purpose of like to have sex with. Like like that's what that's what ancient slavery was like. So like she's she's accurately translate like that is a more accurate translation I think than doing like maid or servant or something. That's not like I don't think that's that's woke, you know, like this is an example of somebody not looking at at Wilson's Wilson's like her reasoning.

[00:17:46]And Wilson explains this in like the uh in her introduction and stuff. She gives all and she has annotations. She [clears throat] explains >> What What you're saying is her translation is actually pretty good and these people coming out of the woodwork and criticizing her don't know what the [ __ ] they're talking about.

[00:18:03]>> Yes. Yeah, I know that's surprising.

[00:18:06]And and a lot of times I don't think they've even read it. I don't even think they've read it. I don't even think >> Of course they haven't.

[00:18:11]>> You think You think You think like You think like these these guys creating like clickbait YouTube channels are sitting around reading like translate different translations of the Odyssey?

[00:18:22]And and and like I mean it's a it's a boring story, man.

[00:18:28]>> [laughter] >> It's it's As somebody who because I read bits of like in in high school you read the the Cyclops incident. Like everybody reads the Cyclops thing. That's all you read.

[00:18:39]Like that's what you read in in high school. And like I finally took the time to like read it all the way through and it is you're right. It is a it's a pretty boring story. Like most of the most of the story is people talking in rooms. And most of the story is oddly told in flashback. You know, like >> Yeah.

[00:18:55]>> Like Odysseus comes home like two-thirds of the way through the story. And there's a whole third of the story that is just devoted to him just like wandering around at home talking to various people while he's in disguise for a very long time for way longer than it needs to be.

[00:19:12]Um and like there's a point it's like the it's like Frankenstein where there's like a a flashback with an a flashback with an a flashback. You're like, this is some chaos here. Like this is this is like I I do not think Elon Musk has read this stuff. Like when Elon Musk like says that Emily Wilson is destroying Western culture, I don't think ketamine high off his ass all the time Elon Musk is is reading any of this.

[00:19:36]>> I mean he clearly hasn't [laughter] read a like a first page of an econ textbook even though he he claims