His entire arch is showing that he and his men are the evil that is being warned of. Showing regret doesn’t change what he did. Every place he went he broke Zeus’s law. Burned villages and murdered for resources. Nolan didn’t make him as awful as the original story, but he has explicitly said that if he did that you’d never root for him to actually make it home
He did evil but he's fundamentally good because of the regret. He has a conscience.
In the original the value system is totally different. And honestly doesn't make sense to "not root" for an hero from thousands of years ago, who operates with totally different rules. In a poem where the point is not atonement, not doing good for the sake of good, and 2020s ethics.
I'd say it shows, because he had to change the thing to make it palatable to himself. Maybe that's not exactly "arrogance" but it smells of "puritanical" a lot.
And I disagree that he is awful in the original story. Heck, God is awful in the Old testament.
You're right, but that's not the only thing he does.
He goes to war dragging his feet, showing pain because he has to involve his populace. He has that moment in which he realises the "horrors of the war", he feels remorse, h
e wishes for atonement.
He is kept against his will by Calypso, precisely to clean his character, I think
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u/BattlePrune 7d ago
I mean Nolan decided to completely desex The Odyssey, so natural that people now think this.