Mills & Boons : Electric Boogalo

But wait! There’s more! (Hi, Billy Mays here..)

We’re not done yet on the steamy romance children! We haven’t even begun to look at Achilles’ rather interesting affairs between Homer’s Iliad and Petersen’s Troy, mostly concerning the characters of Patroclus and Briseis.

The Iliad and Troy build two inherently different Achilles characters – The Iliad is focused entirely on his battle prowess and his unending, undying rage and thirst for battle. Troy features a bit more character development on the whole – expanding on his morality especially. In the Iliad, Briseis’ family had been captured by the Greeks, the rest of them killed except for her – Achilles keeps her as a concubine, as a war prize. Agamemnon also takes a prize for himself in the form of a beautiful girl Chriseis – and refuses to give her up. A plague caused by Apollo in retaliation forces Agamemnon to release her, but demands Briseis in compensation. Achilles, said to be in love with Briseis and her with him, referring to her as his wife and lover many times in the Iliad – refuses to fight because of this.

Troy follows a similar plotline at this point – but injects a large dose of drama at every turn. Briseis is now a priestess of Apollo, and a cousin of Hektor – loved by both him and Paris. Instead of in revenge for the loss of Chriseis, who doesn’t even exist in Petersen’s Troy – Briseis is snatched from Achilles by Agamemnon just to taunt him, reinforcing his character as vile and womanizing. Achilles refuses to fight as in the Iliad.

The duel between Paris and Menelaus occurs in Troy after, Menelaus beating Paris easily as in the Iliad, but instead of Aphrodite saving him, it is his brother Hektor, who kills Menelaus, and, in the battle that ensues because of it, also kills the Greek Hero Ajax. Neither of these characters die during the Iliad, and it can be seen as an effort by Petersen to 1) Save Paris without introducing the physical presence of Gods into the plot, and 2) To intensify an action scene nestled between more dialogue heavy portions of the film, which is primarily one of action.

                        Here's the clip of Hektor killing Menelaus in the film for contrasting purposes

Petersen drops some heavy Hollywood fluff into the film here when Agamemnon gives Briseis to his men as amusement after the battle. Achilles saves her from being raped and sex ensues after some bad dialogue and body language. Although Achilles and Briseis share a loving relation in the Iliad, Petersen moulds her into a major character that acts as a character foil for Achilles hidden ‘moral man’ under his bloodthirsty husk – in the Iliad she is merely property of Achilles, causing him to become indignant when she is taken from him. This is extrapolated with her relationship and dialogue scenes with Priam, Hektor and Paris.