- the different ways you can read Nausicaa. You can read her against Telemachus, the unmarried adolescent of the house, who yearns for adulthood but isn't quite ready to step across the threshold; and you can read her against Helen, who is the other aristocratic woman we've encountered so far (we've barely met Penelope and Athena is not exactly a woman, especially when she's in drag). - the moment when Odysseus comes out of the bushes, looking like a 90% drowned rat. It's fucking hilarious, and then you get Athena frantically giving him a makeover, also very funny. But! Really, the thing I love about that moment is the way it handles relative power hierarchies; we've previously seen Odysseus as powerless, captive on Calypso's island, and totally vulnerable to Poseidon's storms, and here he is suddenly a threat — but he immediately casts himself in the role of supplicant, who needs the teenage Nausicaa to protect him, which is not how Greek heroes usually do anything. - and then you get the introduction to Phaeacia, which I love and yearn to know more about.
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Date: 2025-03-25 01:28 pm (UTC)- the different ways you can read Nausicaa. You can read her against Telemachus, the unmarried adolescent of the house, who yearns for adulthood but isn't quite ready to step across the threshold; and you can read her against Helen, who is the other aristocratic woman we've encountered so far (we've barely met Penelope and Athena is not exactly a woman, especially when she's in drag).
- the moment when Odysseus comes out of the bushes, looking like a 90% drowned rat. It's fucking hilarious, and then you get Athena frantically giving him a makeover, also very funny. But! Really, the thing I love about that moment is the way it handles relative power hierarchies; we've previously seen Odysseus as powerless, captive on Calypso's island, and totally vulnerable to Poseidon's storms, and here he is suddenly a threat — but he immediately casts himself in the role of supplicant, who needs the teenage Nausicaa to protect him, which is not how Greek heroes usually do anything.
- and then you get the introduction to Phaeacia, which I love and yearn to know more about.
I....love the Odyssey a lot.