By Zeus, get me out of here already!

Now that we have (finally) finished addressing the topic of Romance, let us move on to the other bull in the china shop – religion. As I’ve mentioned numerous times before in my previous posts, reference to the Greek gods is possibly the most defining difference between Petersen’s Troy and Homer’s Iliad.  

Homer’s Iliad portrays the Gods as not only sowing the seeds of war with the tale of the apple of discord, but being involved in every twist and turn – Denizens of mount Olympus taking sides such as Poseidon with the Greeks and Apollo with the Trojans leads to scenes described in the poem where the gods are literally fighting in the sand side by side the men.

In comparison, the gods are completely absent – although mentioned numerous times. The only god that physically appears is Achilles’ mother Thetis – though she is only seen in one scene and is portrayed as mundane as possible – so much so that the average viewer probably isn’t aware that she is a god at all. Despite all of this – the gods still eat up their fair share of the film, mostly Apollo as the Trojans devoutly worship him, especially their king Priam. The film dramatizes certain aspects of Greek culture such as hubris and respect to the gods – without the gods actually appearing to have a physical presence in the war like they do in Homer’s Iliad. This comes into play after Achilles’ first battle and victory against the Trojans – he allows his myrmidons to sack the temple of Apollo and kill the priests on the shore. Eudorus cautions Achilles against angering the gods, to which Achilles responds sharply by decapitating the golden statue of Apollo – ‘that is what I think of your gods’ his voiced filled with contempt.

The contrast of respect and lack of respect for the gods plays well into the undercurrent of morality Petersen presents in troy – the Trojans are cast in in a more humane and honourable light, which goes hand in hand with their correct(?) tribute to the gods. This is not a perfect division however, as respect for the gods also clashes with practicality – this is seen in a scene where the high priest of Apollo urges King Priam to make decisions based off signs from Apollo – which Hektor feels are un-agreeable with the war effort. Priam’s decision to trust his priest over his accomplished son shows the strength of his faith in Apollo. Petersen returns to this when the trojans discover the Horse 'left' by the Greeks - Paris and Priam's top military advisor both want to burn it, but Priam's priest of Apollo claims that doing so would anger the gods, and that Hektor's blasphemy earlier is what lead to his death - Priam makes his decision by saying 'I will not see another son of mine die.' By laying heavy scenes at the end of the film when troy is being ransacked and Greeks are tearing down the temple of Apollo with Priam wandering between them, with the look of a broken man – his faith shattered. This is further reinforced when Priam, again a broken man, comes to Achilles to plead him to return his son's body, seen here in the film:

 

This is fairly different to the Iliad’s take on things – where each of the denizens of Mt. Olympus are seen to favour one side of the war effort and physically step in to help their favourites – most notably with Apollo’s spreading of a plague through the Greek army and Aphrodite’s saving of Paris. The film could be considering misleading as it suggests that the Trojans had the gods on their side – Homer’s account shows they merely had some, the Greeks had the rest.