Reading Notes : Homer's Odyssey part a

Today I'm focusing solely on characters, and the personality traits that go with each one

Cyclopes

• - "lawless, aggressive people, who never lift their hands... but rely on the immortal gods..."
• the cyclopes are described pretty negatively from the get go
• they possess no means to escape their own islands, and have no desire to interact with other species
• The main cyclopes was a generic brute character, fairly dumb to believe that odysseus was named nobody, ate a lot of people which is gross

Odysseus 

• Cocky, "I was too wise for that and answered him with cunning words"
• he is smart and confident, and in present day would probably be condescending
• he thinks he is the coolest thing ever, and honestly I am not sure how he got into this mess in the first place if he's so clever 
• he cannot leave the cyclops without making a smart-ass comment first, has to have last word
• I really don't like reading the story from his perspective because everything other sentence is a self brag about his accomplishments

Odysseus's crew

• generally pretty useless, they don't have names and are just eaten by the cyclops
• don't usually come up with ideas of their own
• do something then odysseus tells them they're wrong 

Circe with her pets, Wikimedia Commons

Circe

• Has wolves and lions as her pets, pretty freaking cool. 
• Typical goddess portrayal, sweet voice and elegant, wants sex but kinda evil
• kind of mean and loves to start trouble for no reason
• not actually horrible, makes amends with odysseus easily

Eurylochus

• A leader, actually smart like Odysseus
• not quite so bold, ready to give up easily

Hermes

• charming young god, helpful to odysseus, 
• true neutral 

Elpenor

• odysseus does not have much faith in him "not one of the cleverest or bravest"
• he dies so fast. why even mention him

bibliography

• The Odyssey by Homer. Source