A hero is someone who protects and sacrifices for the people who can not do that for themselves. A hero is brave and courteous, and makes decisions to benefit the greater good, even if it means taking the short end of the stick for one’s self. Odysseus is a largely dynamic character that undergoes many hardships and obstacles that test his abilities and his morals. After being taken from his family, Odysseus embarks on a harrowing journey with more than its fair share of anguish, suffering, and sorrow. Although Odysseus acheived his dream of returning home in the end, the unfaithful and deceitful path that he walked to do so stripped him of all heroic qualities while also sacrificing the life of every man in his crew.
Odysseus’s long 20 year
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As soldiers of Odysseus’s crew, they trusted their captain’s judgement, knowledge, and orders. Yet, like innocent sheep, they were led to their doom by Odysseus himself, guided by his lies. When Odysseus met the blind prophet Teiresias in the underworld, he was informed that he and his crew would make it home alive, but only if they resisted killing the sun god’s cattle when they reach the island of Thrinakia. Odysseus was also told by Circe that 6 of his men would be killed by the sea monster Scylla. Odysseus knew that if he told his crew that they would die, they would refuse to help him return to Ithaca. Blinded by his own selfish desire to return home, Odysseus willingly sacrificed his crew to Scylla, claiming that he “told them nothing as [he] could do nothing” (682). Odysseus also chose not to tell his crew about the danger of killing the sun god’s cattle when they reached Thrinakia, which ultimately cost his entire crew their lives. With the knowledge that he himself would make it home only if the crew perished, Odysseus cowardly concealed the fate of them all for his own personal gain, once again proving that Odysseus was anything but