The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - FREEMIUM： Nolan's Odyssey ｜ An Analysis

00:00:00.000 Hi folks, I had a lot of people asking me what did I think of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey movie

00:00:03.900 and I went to see it in the cinema because I had to and I've come away from it not really caring

00:00:11.100 about the film as a film. So the film itself when you're watching it is not boring, it's a bit

00:00:17.880 ponderous but it is actually interesting to see how Nolan gets from one part of the story to the

00:00:24.300 next and you want to see how he's going to represent the Cyclops or the Sirens or Scylla

00:00:28.360 and Chiribdis and whatever else and so none of that was terribly interesting to me like if you

00:00:33.980 was if you were someone who wasn't in any way politically concerned with what was happening

00:00:38.020 you'd come away thinking it was sort of six out of ten it was okay it wasn't a dramatic failure

00:00:42.900 it wasn't a terrible waste of my life to watch you know it was entertaining enough and I probably

00:00:49.220 wouldn't watch it twice but maybe I would if it was on streaming and you've got a boring Sunday

00:00:54.780 afternoon or something it's that kind of film it wasn't the brilliant epic heroic world conquering

00:01:02.920 film that the movie reviews made you think it would be um but it wasn't terrible to watch

00:01:09.240 Christopher Nolan is if nothing else a competent storyteller even if I'm not really a fan of his

00:01:15.080 by the way as well uh even if even if nothing else so I don't really want to critique the film

00:01:19.860 as a film on its own merits i thought what would be more interesting is analyzing the choices and

00:01:26.500 the consequences of these choices and the message that noland appears to be trying to send to us

00:01:32.640 because it's really bizarre i just don't really understand the choices that he's made so let's

00:01:36.880 begin with talking about the accents so throughout the 20th century it was common for films many of

00:01:47.060 made in hollywood but films made elsewhere to use british actors and british accents to represent

00:01:53.360 historical time periods and this is something that everyone always asks why do we expect ancient

00:01:57.400 romans to have british accents in movies because it doesn't sound modern the modern american accent

00:02:03.740 is coded for modernity so american slang and american habits of speech and just the sound

00:02:11.460 of the american accent because america wasn't a very important country until after world war ii

00:02:17.540 it was just another country one among many and so it wasn't the kind of world dominating media

00:02:22.640 presence that it is now but that is what it has become so in the 20th century with the rise of

00:02:29.140 broadcast media and of course movies american accents have come to signify something about

00:02:35.040 the modern world they are weird when they are placed in different historic context and as you

00:02:40.980 can see with uh gladiator 2 here being the example denzel washington and gladiator 2 i mean i watched

00:02:46.820 gladiator 2 and it was terrible it was just a terrible movie but not only was it terrible

00:02:50.660 it felt weird it felt like i was just out of place and that's the difference the british accent

00:02:57.380 and british terminology if you speak in a way that's more reminiscent of say a 19th century

00:03:04.760 author then you don't sound like you're in the modern world you sound like you're from the old

00:03:10.940 world because the british accent sounds just into our minds like a more old world accent i mean we

00:03:16.360 are an old world country and it creates a frame into which the viewer is invited to step and say

00:03:22.920 look this is not a film about the modern world so things will be different here like mores

00:03:27.380 technology the expectations that people have the actions that they'll take the weapons that they'll

00:03:33.280 use the way that they travel around the world the things that they're concerned about these are all

00:03:39.360 non-modern things they're not they're not scientific they're not materialistic they're

00:03:44.820 not rationalistic it might be that you're entering into a world of mythology and gods and prepare to

00:03:51.660 encounter things that are going to be very very strange but prepared to take these things as read

00:03:57.600 as the thing that the people in the past believed in sincerely in the same way that you believe in

00:04:03.640 science and so it helps the viewer put themselves in the position of someone who lived a thousand

00:04:10.020 years ago or two thousand years ago or three thousand years ago whatever it is so these

00:04:14.000 dramatically different standards and expectations become something that's a lot easier to accept

00:04:18.660 if it was that oh athena has just popped up here well then that would make sense because of course

00:04:23.900 if i'm doing a thing in ancient greece well they believe that that's what the gods did i suppose

00:04:28.220 that for nolan's odyssey this becomes a bit less of an issue because not only are there very few

00:04:33.100 gods in this but also he doesn't actually seem to be trying to recreate the past which i know

00:04:37.900 is a strange thing to say given it's the odyssey but i'll be able to explain shortly and you see

00:04:43.520 this uh problem coming uh through with the dialogue right now it was leaked long before

00:04:50.680 the movie came out that the dialogue would be modern and tom holland for example when arguing

00:04:57.920 with the suitors uh says my dad is coming home it's like okay that sounds profanely modern but

00:05:07.940 it also sounds really childish and trivial right there's dignity of saying my father is going to

00:05:12.860 return right that would be someone who sounds like they have um duties and obligations that they are

00:05:20.280 living up to and fulfilling whereas a child says my dad is coming home someone who upon no one

00:05:26.480 relies and has no particular responsibilities and is not in any danger so this is again one of those

00:05:33.780 things that's just jarring right the american accent the childish dialogue for me i was watching

00:05:39.480 like okay gross is basically how i felt about it um christopher nolan tells us what i wanted to do

00:05:47.580 of this film was to really take a modern audience and throw them into a very relatable world

00:05:51.980 okay that's a weird thing to do i mean i don't think the world of the odyssey is actually very

00:05:57.220 relatable to i mean people from a thousand years afterwards people from two thousand years after

00:06:01.460 even up until the modern day but the magic of the world is in its distance from us if it wasn't so

00:06:09.780 different why would i care why not just rewrite the odyssey to be uh set in the modern era like

00:06:17.480 uh the warriors was a modern retelling of the anabasis by xenophon why not do that why go to

00:06:24.980 all of the hassle and the effort to make it look like it's in bronze age greece if you're not going

00:06:31.920 to try and make it seem like it's in bronze age greece and if you're going to choose a bunch of 0.87

00:06:36.940 yankees saying my dad's coming home i can't do an american accent but you know what i mean like it 0.67

00:06:42.240 there's there's an instant disconnect for me watching this and i think for a lot of other

00:06:46.940 people as well uh because it just feels like right okay this is not a serious project and i can't

00:06:51.760 become immersed in it it doesn't feel real even if the feeling of being drawn into an ancient epic

00:06:59.260 is completely artificial completely something that is a product of just 20th century custom

00:07:04.520 when doing hollywood movies we'll use british actors to represent people from the ancient world

00:07:09.400 so it feels like it's not a modern story but if you don't do that you know whether it doesn't

00:07:15.460 might not make sense even but like that's the way we're conditioned to view hollywood movies and to

00:07:20.160 view the um time periods represented in them and so if you don't do that i mean okay but this kind

00:07:27.420 of takes me out of it and it also makes me wonder why you think that so little of the modern audience

00:07:33.240 like up until this point audiences had always been very happy with this and now suddenly there is the 0.97

00:07:39.420 modern audience who is so retarded that they can't relate to something if it isn't exactly as they 0.95

00:07:46.620 hear it walking down the street after they leave the cinema okay well maybe maybe that's true who 0.98

00:07:52.560 knows anyway let's move on so before we got to see the odyssey some of the first things that people

00:08:01.120 were exposed to regarding it were the race and gender swaps in the film it was rumored that

00:08:07.260 Elliot Page the five foot nothing 90 pounds when soaking wet transgender male to female actor

00:08:15.100 was going to play it was rumored Achilles but this has been changed to Sinon so in the story

00:08:21.360 the position of Achilles has been changed to a different character which changes the nature of

00:08:26.640 the story but anyway that doesn't really matter but people watching this clip are like Ryke

00:08:31.440 that's clearly a young female bodied person running along it doesn't feel like a warrior

00:08:38.180 and yet everyone acts like uh elliot page is this great brave the greatest warrior in fact

00:08:44.640 bravest warrior of the greeks and it's not really very convincing and so that's another aspect where

00:08:50.660 it's like okay that's a weird thing to have done and it means that i have to bring something to

00:08:57.320 your film rather than your film bringing something to me because the whole point of you putting it

00:09:03.600 in this particular set in this location with them wearing this armor and this you know the

00:09:09.580 the various camera angles and the the costume design and all this is to make me not think

00:09:16.680 this is a fake the whole point of the illusion of cinema is to make me think the thing is real

00:09:22.440 and then i see this and now i have to pretend that i think the thing is real otherwise i'm being

00:09:31.020 politically incorrect and you think that doesn't take me out of the experience of course that takes

00:09:36.060 me out of the experience but it's also why this is an intrinsically liberal film and so the next

00:09:41.100 thing is the rest of the casting which is avowedly multicultural shall we say this is a clip from the

00:09:48.880 scene with the sirens where Odysseus is tied to the mast and everyone else has wax in their ears

00:09:53.240 but apparently this guy doesn't have wax on his ears he hears the sirens and he jumps off and

00:09:57.720 swims to his death uh he's Korean now that's a bit weird how did a Korean ended up on Odysseus's ship

00:10:07.420 as part of his crew now again I meant to say well I'm a good liberal I'm a good advocate of 0.99

00:10:15.180 multiculturalism i will not mention this i will just ignore the fact that this is a korean man

00:10:20.720 who somehow finds himself sailing with odysseus and of course there was this scene where this

00:10:27.080 indian man is second in command he says in the movie we are greeks from ithaca he says it to a

00:10:34.400 man who's speaking greek weirdly enough that he needs translated to him and that's very very

00:10:39.940 strange because now what is happening is that the ancient world is being represented as if the

00:10:47.060 people of the time were living in modern western countries that have also been subsumed by

00:10:51.800 immigrants as if the diversity and multiculturalism that has been imposed on the west for the last 50 0.97

00:10:57.780 or so years is actually completely normal and has been this way since the beginning of time and so

00:11:04.600 the question is okay well how did this come about then how are there discrete racial groups different

00:11:10.880 racial groups living side by side for many thousands of years without them just homogenizing

00:11:16.180 into one unitary new racial group how could that happen how is it possible that that happens and

00:11:24.400 also the implication again is that the identities are not contingent on their ethnic inheritance but

00:11:29.900 only on their geographic proximity born in greece you're a greek then hard jeep it's like no he is

00:11:37.200 an indian right he in the ancient world everything was done through the principle of heredity the

00:11:42.000 greeks in ithaca are the descendants of greeks who live in ithaca and the reason that telemachus

00:11:48.020 is thinking about trying to take the throne of ithaca is because he's a disis's son it's not

00:11:53.740 that they live in a social contract society where someone can be just assigned the status citizen 0.79

00:12:00.260 be given papers by the government and oh you're as Ithacan as the rest of us now you're as Greek

00:12:05.940 as the rest of us that's just not how the ancient world worked we are forced to believe that that

00:12:11.140 must somehow have been the case for this guy to say we are Greeks from Ithaca he is not Greek

00:12:17.660 therefore I now have to perform even more for the film itself yes Elliot Page is a great hero and

00:12:25.400 great warrior yes I won't say anything about that I will just overlook that and now we have a Greek

00:12:31.000 from Ithaca or a Korean from Ithaca oh right okay Ithaca must have an incredible airport for all

00:12:36.800 these people to fly in and arrive there because that's how they get here in the modern day how 0.88

00:12:41.300 did they come to be there how did Greece produce these people it's just kind of crazy and so we

00:12:47.500 end up in that kind of as christian here points out this sort of year zero we're no better than

00:12:52.680 our viking ancestors this was from a norwegian or sorry swedish airlines commercial where they had

00:12:58.780 an african saying we're no better than our viking ancestors that's a very traditional thing to say

00:13:04.080 but they weren't his ancestors but because he's arrived in sweden and he's been given the swedish

00:13:09.180 passport he's now the inheritor the heir to this civilization as if it is his own bloodline but

00:13:15.360 it's not but then you've got travis scott a rapper reciting uh the poem of the odyssey in the film to

00:13:22.460 entertain the suitors but what's the context of ancient ithaca then how did an african get there

00:13:28.740 how did a korean get there how did an indian get there and are we to assume that this is some sort

00:13:32.780 of post-racial paradise because of course no one mentions the races of any of these things at all 0.68

00:13:37.720 of any of these people at all so is this the glorious liberal future where we've where everyone

00:13:44.320 has gotten past race no one even sees race anymore and so there's no institutional racism

00:13:51.660 as a black man does he suffer any or is it that just like our own western civilization

00:13:57.840 this influx of politically correct diversity uh has been given explicit racial privileges

00:14:05.440 does he get affirmative action is he an affirmative action higher is he di higher does he get reduced

00:14:11.460 prison sentences by woke judges who make sure that the prison populations are kept roughly equal

00:14:18.640 like what is the context in which a black person arrives in ithaca an indian arrives in ithaca

00:14:24.960 if we are to assume that we want modern audiences to relate to this then we also put and the the

00:14:32.740 world itself racially looks like the modern world that which we live in are we to assume

00:14:38.960 the Odysseus for example there are hate speech laws that would inhibit him saying certain words

00:14:44.380 to this guy is it all just the same is it all just a recreation of our modern world projected

00:14:49.900 back 3,000 years onto the Greeks in Ithaca it's just it's very bizarre how did how did the

00:14:58.680 civilization produce this man if it's not through immigration just how did that happen anyway this

00:15:05.120 particular canard might seem trivial but it sets the groundwork for the believability of the entire

00:15:11.920 thing if that's the case why even set it in the ancient world like why try to persuade us that

00:15:19.520 people have always been inclusive and progressive why not show the difference but anyway

00:15:25.860 because Nolan is not actually interested in setting this film in a historical period and

00:15:36.580 actually what he's doing is for the modern audience just projecting modern values backwards

00:15:41.880 this is of course a deeply feminist film this uh is a perennial theme throughout the film as well

00:15:48.800 men are bad women are good over and over and over we see this whether it's Odysseus with the suitors

00:15:55.420 whether it's in fact here Circe in the new film now there's a couple of things here Circe was

00:16:02.660 always I mean she was a goddess right she's oh sorry a witch but she was portrayed as being a

00:16:08.460 beautiful seductress which as you can see in the older versions she was in Christopher Nolan's

00:16:14.180 version she's not she's portrayed as an old hag who just really hates men and the crew of the

00:16:23.540 um Odysseus's crew arrive at Cersei's island uh they're starving so she takes them in and gives 0.98

00:16:29.620 them food turns them into pigs I mean very subtle men are pigs and without them having actually done

00:16:37.020 anything wrong because she invites them to eat like they they get there they scare her and they 0.95

00:16:41.920 say don't worry we're not gonna hurt you we just we just need food and she's okay well I'll give 0.97

00:16:45.740 you food and then turns them into pigs because she just hates men and thinks all men are just 0.99

00:16:50.340 pigs who are going to rape her well that's just not what happened fundamentally though why not 0.99

00:16:55.860 make her an attractive woman so that might be a thing that she would be genuinely worried about 0.99

00:17:01.180 right random men turning up to like hideous old women possibly not quite the same as if you're 1.00

00:17:06.940 the woman on the right but this is because this is the feminist abolition of the male gaze exists

00:17:13.380 throughout this film again we're told that we're supposed to believe and we'll get to in a second

00:17:18.620 that helen of troy is the most beautiful woman in the world the face that launched a thousand ships

00:17:22.440 no here again deprived of the opportunity to say oh yeah that is a beautiful seductress

00:17:28.540 i can see why odyssey would stay with her for a year because um she forces him to stay with her 1.00

00:17:34.780 for a year uh you know in a romantic relationship but then this is again a feminist aspect of 0.93

00:17:41.400 modernity that is being projected backwards no these virtues do not matter to feminism 0.97

00:17:46.960 therefore they will not matter to christian christopher nolan's odyssey the next one and

00:17:52.260 here's clytemestra murdering agamemnon which is not quite how it happened in the story but

00:17:59.240 whatever um she's uh as you can see race swapped again who who understands why and what's interesting

00:18:08.720 as well is at one point you see agamemnon taking his daughter with clytemestra off to be sacrificed

00:18:13.900 and his daughter is mixed race so in the film they do acknowledge that there is racial heredity

00:18:20.700 right now obviously why am I saying that well because you need to now explain how Ithaca became 0.59

00:18:27.240 so multicultural but anyway another feminist uh innovation in Nolan's Odyssey is it's not

00:18:34.540 Clytemestra and her lover the murder argument on no because that would imply negative behavior on

00:18:40.100 point and also it reduces her agency so now it's just her murdering agamemnon and then of course

00:18:46.400 the men are bad theme continues with uh helen of troy's face being actually scarred by menelaus

00:18:54.040 now here's um a picture of the scarring from the screen this is again not in the odyssey because

00:19:02.240 menelaus didn't not love his wife now their relationship is strained in the actual poem

00:19:07.960 when they come back but there's no reason or no hint to think that he's abused her or anything

00:19:13.060 like this but this is the direct implication in nolan's odyssey he gets to menelaus's palace

00:19:19.240 in sparta menelaus is a bitter man and he is cruel to his wife again it's implied that he's

00:19:26.980 scarred her face um why why do that other than to say men are bad powerful men are bad again 0.88

00:19:35.680 the most feminist narrative you could possibly have is powerful men are bad and they abuse women

00:19:41.200 and that's all we see throughout nolan's odyssey and in fact it's weird because john bernthal

00:19:45.840 had to then come out and say well she's the most beautiful woman in the world

00:19:49.840 i mean everyone's got their preferences right i just personally don't see it he says for me

00:19:58.760 there's no one else in the world who could have done that uh who comes with that level of beauty

00:20:03.000 both inside and out that you believe somebody would go to war for i'm just so glad it was her

00:20:07.320 okay well sure have your opinion but it just seems to me that you're saying this because she's an 0.97

00:20:14.500 unattractive foreign woman and you have to say that because if you weren't say that you wouldn't 0.82

00:20:19.760 get cast in the film like this and then finally you have penelope's just openly feminist rant 0.95

00:20:25.160 towards the end of the film where telemachus is saying that maybe i should just take the throne 0.93

00:20:31.540 maybe Odysseus isn't coming back and I'll kick the suits out. And she says, empty throne. I've

00:20:36.420 been sat on that empty throne for 20 years and demands, why can't I be the king of Ithaca?

00:20:42.180 Because I'm, I'm the queen. Why can't I take control of Ithaca? Well, this is because it's

00:20:47.220 3000 years ago in ancient Greece. Now Penelope is not a feminist and doesn't say anything feminist 1.00

00:20:53.820 in the poem. In fact, at one point in the beginning, Telemachus tells her to shut up and

00:20:57.800 go to her quarters and she does that's her son um because it was a patriarchal world why represent

00:21:04.440 it as not a patriarchal world or a world in which the women are struggling against the patriarchy

00:21:09.580 that's just not the case in the odyssey why bring this modernity this modernism

00:21:14.920 into the story what are you trying to do here what are you accomplishing

00:21:20.180 and so moving on to odysseus a lot of people have noticed matt damon doesn't really seem

00:21:31.240 like odysseus doesn't act in any way like odysseus matt damon's character is a deeply

00:21:37.460 grieved and uh shame-ridden character whereas odysseus is actually a very um effervescent

00:21:48.000 and vainglorious character and much of the plot of the odyssey is odysseus getting his own

00:21:55.160 comeuppance and much of the plot of the odyssey is actually odysseus being a braggart being uh

00:22:02.000 arrogant and then getting what he deserves because he shouldn't he should have just wound his neck in

00:22:08.500 frankly and a lot of people have noticed this so hang on a second this just doesn't 0.83

00:22:12.540 it as cinema copa here points out in homer's poem odysseus is suffering from a lethal dose

00:22:17.620 of vanity the gods particularly poseidon are putting a check on his arrogance he's a man who

00:22:22.700 needs to learn humility before he can touch his home soil again and this is the narrative the

00:22:27.240 character arc of odysseus throughout the odyssey i mean it the the example where he meets polyphemus

00:22:33.960 and blinds him is the best one nolan leaves this out where he says oh okay well who are you i'm

00:22:40.540 nobody and then when he blinds him and the cyclops they run out from the cave and the cyclops goes

00:22:45.680 out and he yells to his fellow cyclopses oh nobody has they say what's wrong what's wrong

00:22:50.900 and he says nobody has blinded me and they say well can there's no problem then is there

00:22:54.540 and then Odysseus jumps on a ship and they sail out and because no one's helping Polyphemus

00:22:59.100 he throws rocks at them but it's in vain because he can't see them and he doesn't hit them and as

00:23:03.700 they get out of range Odysseus goes aha it was I Odysseus who blinded you not nobody and that's a

00:23:11.440 really silly thing to do because polyphemus is the son of a poseidon and poseidon is the god of the

00:23:18.520 sea and so polyphemus just prays to poseidon please stop odysseus from reaching his home

00:23:23.600 and poseidon's like great i hate that guy if you had if he hadn't told you his name and you hadn't

00:23:29.340 tattled on him to me odysseus would be on his way home right now and everything would have been fine 0.54

00:23:33.720 but instead another 10 years out at sea thank you very much and all of these are the dangers that

00:23:38.200 get your crew killed right the the lesson in it is Odysseus just wind your neck in even if you are

00:23:44.480 very smart very cunning favored by Athena even if you manage to trick the Trojans into bringing the 0.63

00:23:50.100 the Greeks into the walls and then you tear down the city you you win the great Trojan war that

00:23:54.380 you spent 10 years besieging even if you are that man have a bit of humility because the gods will

00:24:01.400 punish you if you don't that's the message but that's not the message of Nolan's film so what

00:24:07.160 is he telling us well i mean a lot of people are like yeah what is he telling us like what is the

00:24:12.380 point of this and emily wilson the author of the translation that christopher nolan's film is made

00:24:18.940 on also agrees what are you doing like this is not odysseus this is a completely different

00:24:27.480 character in fact i'll play a clip because it's just such a good breakdown i mean i didn't expect

00:24:32.220 the most piercing criticism of Nolan's Odysseus

00:24:35.700 to come from Emily Wilson, 1.00

00:24:37.560 but she's absolutely right.

00:24:41.060 I mean, the film has these flashbacks to the Trojan War.

00:24:44.900 I'm not sure if I see it as an entirely anti-war film,

00:24:47.880 but it certainly presents us with an Odysseus

00:24:50.280 who feels very bad about certain things

00:24:53.080 that he's done in war

00:24:54.200 and is struggling to process them

00:24:57.020 in a very, I would say, very modern, psychiatrised way.

00:25:02.220 and he's struggling to process them and needs drugs to do so

00:25:05.940 for help with his recovery.

00:25:09.420 And he seems to feel bad about being a warrior,

00:25:12.740 and we never actually get to see him doing much warrior-ing,

00:25:15.500 which I thought in a way was a bit of a shame.

00:25:17.440 I mean, we do get to see the boat, which is lovely,

00:25:19.820 but I think in some ways, I mean, I was realising,

00:25:23.920 thinking about the film, there's a tolerance for ambiguity

00:25:27.760 in the world of The Odyssey, which I don't think there exactly is

00:25:30.840 in the world of Hollywood blockbuster action films.

00:25:33.920 Right.

00:25:34.240 And I think that's one of the big challenges for Nolan, right?

00:25:36.140 That is that he has to make the protagonist

00:25:39.040 a likeable all-American hero.

00:25:42.160 Right.

00:25:42.520 Which is a real challenge if you're basing this on a poem

00:25:47.240 where the hero is not necessarily motivated by romantic love

00:25:53.240 or being a nice suburban parent,

00:25:55.460 but actually by...

00:25:56.420 He wants glory.

00:25:57.520 And he wants to get spoils from the sack of a city,

00:26:00.040 which is you'll see what no one does with all of that but it's different things from what homer

00:26:05.360 does right i kept looking in vain for a sense that this was a film about glory i think it's a film

00:26:12.220 that has some interest in shame but i don't think it has any interest in glory that's an incredibly

00:26:17.800 accurate take odysseus is not the character that nolan portrays him to be and in fact a lot of

00:26:24.440 people came to the conclusion as the american reformer here pointed out is that what this is

00:26:30.060 is a story about the modern age using the skin suit of the odyssey this is a great thesis we

00:26:37.980 begin to understand nolan's odysseus better if we conceive of him not as a faithful representative

00:26:42.640 of some ancient heroic ethos but rather as a commentary on the bewildered present odysseus

00:26:48.180 in 2026 is not a pagan pirate king endlessly cunning hunting for glory and treasure which

00:26:54.080 is how he's represented in the odyssey this character makes more sense as matt a veteran

00:26:58.640 of global war on terror matt has spent years making his memory fuzzy with opioids the lotus

00:27:04.040 again in the movie uh odysseus is on uh calypso's island eating the lotus and i'm not even i'm not

00:27:11.560 even particularly bothered about the kind of abridgment of the story for the uh for the big

00:27:16.380 screen this is a normal thing to have to do i mean pete jackson did it in lord of the rings for

00:27:20.800 example who took out tom bombadil or the scouring of the shire um these are normal things to do

00:27:26.360 because you've got a particular like um a much more restrained canvas to work on and so yeah okay

00:27:35.140 some things need to be abroached out of it so that's totally normal totally fine but uh he he's

00:27:40.600 on the island with calypso eating the lotuses to to get rid of his memories of the trojan war

00:27:47.500 but Odysseus is not ashamed of his work in the Trojan War and uh and he has his therapy sessions

00:27:54.340 with Calypso where she literally just sits there processing it with him but he's still haunted by

00:28:00.820 the war crimes he has witnessed he spent a lot of time adventuring in sandy places only to rush out

00:28:05.240 once it turns into a total debacle like Afghanistan playing over and over and this is really really

00:28:10.920 interesting because it is just not the Homeric character that we see portrayed in Nolan's Odyssey

00:28:17.960 and it is exactly the same like it it's as if Homer uh Nolan's Odysseus thought he was going

00:28:27.300 to Troy to set up democracy there or something like he was going to bring them human rights

00:28:33.500 and we'll talk in a bit actually about the um strange interpretation of the morality of the

00:28:40.640 trojan war as well uh but this this is a point that um many people have made when keith woods

00:28:45.420 wrote an excellent article about this uh in which he points out that this is just the modern

00:28:50.400 therapeutic liberal morality applied to a man who's meant to be a hero so in all of the senses 0.98

00:28:57.760 we've got men are pigs men are pigs men are pigs women are of course great even if they're not 0.98

00:29:03.840 very attractive you're going to say they're attractive even if they're not obviously great 0.99

00:29:07.400 warriors you're going to say they're obviously great warriors and the only place for the men

00:29:11.780 the actual protagonist men in this situation is to um how to put it uh humble themselves

00:29:20.240 feel shame about the actions of themselves in the past do everything they can to atone for the

00:29:27.420 actions that they've taken for the expressions of their own power and greatness they have to

00:29:32.340 be reduced minimized immiserated for having these abilities and so that other people can be raised

00:29:39.320 up and this is a great point that uh keith woods is making here this this is just the modern uh

00:29:48.160 sort of uh cock shaming of western man applied to the ancient pagan epic of the odyssey and

00:29:56.340 everyone's noticed it's it's not really Odysseus at all the translator uh translator here says

00:30:02.640 this tormented guilt-ridden Odysseus stripped of humor and wit seductiveness and cleverness

00:30:08.000 is a sibling of Memento's disguised anguished amnesiac of Batman of Oppenheimer Nolan has

00:30:14.940 merely remade Homer's hero in his own image and so it feeds into a particular pattern of films

00:30:22.280 and thoughts that nolan has any great expression of masculine power is fundamentally something

00:30:28.540 shameful to christopher nolan and to exculpate his own guilt over these things i mean notice

00:30:35.900 he's taking three years off filmmaking for this after this that's a weird thing isn't it like it

00:30:40.360 was understood this would be a big movie and so it's almost kind of like a reflection of his own

00:30:45.280 shame or something but in in to ameliorate all this no no we have to raise up all of these 0.96

00:30:50.460 foreigners that's they're they're in the they're the greeks now now we have to raise up uh helen 0.92

00:30:55.160 of troy and all the women they're they're the real protagonists of this and of course elliot

00:30:58.940 page because why not um it's a it's masculinity as portrayed as embarrassed and ashamed of itself

00:31:06.820 and guilty of its own historic wrongs i just don't really agree with that i mean the whole

00:31:14.160 thing is

00:31:15.380 based in guilt. This is a great meme by

00:31:18.180 Conley Drucker. Oh yeah, another thing.

00:31:20.340 The dialogue's terrible.

00:31:22.560 Our Age of Bronze is collapsing.

00:31:24.380 At one point, Penelope

00:31:25.880 accuses Odysseus of being the sea

00:31:28.080 people who, throughout the film, are these

00:31:30.060 fabled sea raiders

00:31:32.020 who go around sacking everything. Now, 0.85

00:31:34.000 historically, I think it probably is correct that

00:31:36.000 the Achaeans, as in

00:31:37.700 the people actually attacking

00:31:40.180 Troy, were a part of

00:31:42.160 the sea people invasions. They weren't the entire thing.

00:31:44.160 but they were definitely a part of it and this is being used as a form of guilt against Odysseus

00:31:51.980 how dare you be the villains all along she's essentially calling him the Nazis here and I

00:31:59.780 mean maybe historically there's some truth to this actually but because Odysseus is the protagonist

00:32:05.540 of the film or the story you would think his narrative would be a self-reinforcing one that

00:32:11.740 actually shows him to have been the hero of the story all along but instead the narrative is 0.87

00:32:17.100 actually the white man is a villain he is actually shameful and he's he's the Nazi all along is what

00:32:25.060 you can take out of it now this shame that is put into Odysseus for the sack of Troy throughout the 0.97

00:32:32.920 whole thing just doesn't mirror Odysseus in the Odyssey I mean he's very happy to be going around

00:32:39.980 sacking cities and he was very proud of himself as emily wilson points out he's he's seeking glory

00:32:45.360 he's seeking um his own ego to be inflated for the things that he has accomplished i mean you

00:32:52.920 can actually look up the odyssey like there's there's the the closest i could find in the

00:32:57.740 odyssey is at the end of book eight where a poet begins reciting the story of the sack of troy

00:33:03.140 and Odysseus starts weeping now it's not it's not explicitly said why he is weeping actually

00:33:10.920 right it's assumed he's weeping like a woman after hearing about the sack of Troy now you could if

00:33:19.280 you have if you wanted to interpret this in certain ways so you could interpret it that

00:33:25.040 he is remembering the friends and comrades that he lost the difficulties of the Trojan War or you

00:33:32.560 could interpret it that he somehow feels guilty for his part in it i personally don't think it's

00:33:38.940 obvious that the second interpretation is a valid one especially throughout the rest of the story

00:33:43.980 there is no reason to think that he feels guilty about this at all i mean he's proud of his epithet

00:33:50.980 of the sacra of cities he's proud of all of the things that they have accomplished in other places

00:33:55.440 and in fact the the film does display him sacking ismaris in the land of the sicchiones which

00:34:04.360 is in thrace it's just north of troy the first thing he does after leaving troy is goes and

00:34:09.300 sacks another city and so it's not clear at all that it and not only does he sack the city he

00:34:15.240 kills all the men but they they plan to go around sacking other cities and this is when they get

00:34:20.620 fought off by like the last dragonians or whoever else well it's because they were there to take

00:34:24.720 things they were there to steal from the people there it's not clear that Odysseus feels any

00:34:29.500 moral compunction about this at all but instead in Nolan's adaptation Odysseus is now just a cipher

00:34:37.560 for the sort of post-Christian western man who's struggling with the actions of his ancestors if

00:34:43.060 not his own actions and can't square it with the modern morality that suggests actually no one

00:34:50.280 should be great no one should be above anyone else no one should be accomplished actually we

00:34:55.700 should all be equals and the only way for us all to be equals is for us all to be at the bottom

00:35:00.100 layer of society no one should have more than another no longer is Odysseus a glory-seeking

00:35:06.300 arrogant bronze age warrior he's in fact just a wimpy modern man who's not entertaining who's

00:35:12.840 not interesting who doesn't fight in his own cause anymore and who needs endless therapeutizing 0.67

00:35:20.080 like i've got to sit there with calypso as she talks to me about the horrible past i've forgotten 0.83

00:35:25.260 because i've taken so many drugs it's a it's pathetic it's a genuinely pathetic story and 0.95

00:35:31.700 it's a genuinely pathetic character and it's a genuinely pathetic portrayal of the character 0.87

00:35:37.520 and so i when i watched this i was like okay i'm not even offended by this obvious bastardization 0.98

00:35:43.760 of the Odyssey and the deliberate attempt to, again, immiserate straight white men, overthrow

00:35:50.680 them, demoralize them, to stop them from being the protagonists of their own civilization, 0.60

00:35:56.060 because I didn't even feel like I was watching the Odyssey.

00:36:03.260 I think there's a comparison to be drawn with Nolan's Odyssey, in fact, the Odyssey itself

00:36:08.020 officer's story and the film citizen vigilante that came out recently and how these are actually

00:36:14.640 stories with quite a similar point told in very different ways and christopher nolan has got to

00:36:22.680 a point where he has bastardized the story so much that actually the odyssey doesn't make sense on

00:36:29.280 its own terms so throughout the odyssey christopher nolan reveals himself to be obsessed with what

00:36:36.020 he calls zeus's law now this is a term called xenia now this is this is the uh sacred and

00:36:43.400 ritualized guest rules for when a stranger becomes a guest in your house and how you have to treat

00:36:49.960 them it's got very specific application as in when a person who is powerless comes into your

00:36:55.980 position of power your seat of power you are obliged by the the ever ever watchful zeus um

00:37:03.100 not to aggress against their person not steal from them not to harm them and to treat them

00:37:10.240 with dignity respect and to give them food and drink and uh shelter and whatnot and this is an

00:37:16.120 understandable thing if you've got a civilization of bronze age pirates yes to do any kind of trade

00:37:22.900 to do any kind of travel to know that you're dealing with civilized men you're going to need

00:37:27.860 some kind of rule that if someone comes to my court or to my house or whatever uh don't just

00:37:33.860 murder and rape him don't just kill him and take his stuff uh then there needs to be a rule that

00:37:38.780 prevents that sort of thing from happening so you can get anything done so you can do anything so 0.84

00:37:43.100 you could actually trust someone else and so that's what Xenia is Christopher Nolan represents

00:37:48.620 it as the golden rule do unto others as they would do unto you and this is represented throughout the

00:37:54.340 entire film over and over and over and so okay fundamentally that's not what Xenia is Xenia is

00:38:00.460 actually a kind of backstop for a parochial rapacious warlike society just to make sure

00:38:08.060 they don't harm one another because they would otherwise it's fine to harm outsiders but harming

00:38:13.440 one another is actually not a great thing to do so this is what this is for is not a universal rule

00:38:18.740 for mankind and it's also only applied in very specific circumstances but this is why Christopher

00:38:25.980 Nolan has said this well thank you uh yeah as I was really going back to the poem and looking at

00:38:34.800 okay what what fuels all this what what's sort of there behind it you have this concept of xenia we

00:38:39.340 don't refer to a xenia in the film because I think it would be confusing so we just refer to it as

00:38:42.960 uses law but it's the idea that you know you might look like a humble beggar but you could be a god

00:38:47.980 in disguise, and that becomes the theological underpinning for a society that saw gods everywhere.

00:38:54.980 Gods walked amongst us back then, in everybody's estimation.

00:38:58.440 It becomes a theological underpinning of the golden rule, of the idea that, you know, treat

00:39:02.700 others as you would be treated, and that being the glue that binds society together.

00:39:08.560 The more I thought about it, the more that became important to the project, because the

00:39:13.420 You realize that, yeah, back then, leaving the house for more than a day or two, you're

00:39:19.200 by definition throwing yourself at the mercy of strangers.

00:39:22.320 Society can only function with respect for strangers.

00:39:26.880 The more you look at it, the more we talked about it, the more we started bringing the

00:39:29.840 project together, the more you realize nothing's changed.

00:39:32.100 We're just as dependent on that.

00:39:33.700 Nothing's changed in that regard.

00:39:34.700 And so it's a point of connection with this text of 3,000 years ago that isn't just a

00:39:39.820 a great adventure story, but it's also a kind of ethical and moral foundation that connects us to

00:39:44.700 a very different time. This is a fascinating answer, isn't it? Because it kind of implies

00:39:48.420 that Christopher Nolan is worried about the general state of the West and the liberal order

00:39:52.980 itself. He can see that millions of foreigners have been brought here. And if we don't accept 1.00

00:39:59.060 these millions of foreigners that have been forced upon us, then civilization can't function. 1.00

00:40:05.480 And in a way that, I mean, he's not wrong, but why should we ought to? Why should we ought to deal with these suitors who are currently causing havoc in areas in the West at the moment? 1.00

00:40:20.140 and instead of us actually learning a lesson from Odysseus on how to deal with unruly suitors

00:40:29.380 well he wants us to apply the law of Xenia Zeus's law of make sure that you just give them everything

00:40:36.060 that you have because otherwise something society doesn't function and it's like well okay but what

00:40:44.040 are we even saying here it's like we've got to respect Xenia go home and clear out the unruly

00:40:49.480 troublemakers that's that doesn't make sense i mean for example odysseus is not troubled by xenia

00:40:57.900 when it comes to the sack of troy even though in the film uh nolan makes it explicit that that is

00:41:04.020 the case so for some reason um again it doesn't doesn't make sense in the film uh odysseus somehow

00:41:11.400 feels he has violated the zeus's law xenia the the law of uh the host and the guest

00:41:17.160 in the sack of troy now it's obvious that it doesn't apply in the case of an army has gone

00:41:24.920 and besieged a town or a city obviously they're not guests obviously they're not protected by

00:41:30.340 xenia obviously this is a war and something completely different so at best a category

00:41:36.980 error but in the case of the trojan war it was the trojans themselves that violated the law of xenia

00:41:43.220 by stealing helen from menelaus when paris and hector were guests in his court like the greeks

00:41:50.140 are not the ones who are guilty of violating the sacred law and yet for some reason they because

00:41:57.080 they represent the straight white men in this story they're the only people treated with the

00:42:00.680 odysseus in particular is treated with the the person who is supposed to actually take moral

00:42:06.220 responsibility for things it's like okay but the the problem with his interpretation of Xenia as

00:42:13.680 being the golden rule is that actually and they're not just the golden rule as well it goes beyond

00:42:19.180 that it goes into well actually we should just give up our entire civilizations as he has Odysseus

00:42:27.740 doing in the end of the story it doesn't make sense even on its own terms okay let's assume

00:42:33.760 that he should do that Odysseus should do that why kill the suitors then what have the suitors

00:42:39.840 actually done wrong I mean in the story they have violated the law of Xenia and that's why

00:42:45.820 Odysseus kills them but why wouldn't you just expel them then why wouldn't you just say oh okay

00:42:53.280 well you know now that I'm back there's nothing for you to be a suitor about therefore you're no

00:43:00.060 longer a guest therefore you can just leave because from the story's own premise the suitors

00:43:04.860 haven't really committed any crimes yeah okay they're eating zeus's food and they're living

00:43:10.840 in his house but that's the law of xenia that nolan is trying to support it's not it's not a

00:43:21.400 crime according to nolan's own interpretation so it becomes deeply incongruous when odysseus

00:43:28.820 is slaying the suitors like this only makes sense if the suitors are in the wrong and if they're not

00:43:36.540 in the wrong why is he doing it and from nolan's perspective the suitors aren't really in the wrong

00:43:41.060 you have an obligation to zeus to turf out the suitors and that's why like this scene is very

00:43:49.500 very gratifying when you actually read it in the in the odyssey right this this scene of righteous

00:43:55.260 vengeance after all the the struggles and the lessons that Odysseus has learned to finally

00:44:01.900 arrive back and see the state of the place and see how oh he's been taken advantage of and how

00:44:07.860 these people need to get it because of the way they've been taking advantage of him well yeah 0.99

00:44:13.400 they deserve this now but in Christopher Nolan's like deeply modern libtard interpretation of Xenia 0.99

00:44:20.620 no they've done nothing wrong really in fact you owed them all of these things because they were 0.99

00:44:26.740 staying in your court to court your wife as you when you were when everyone thought you were dead

00:44:31.700 um weirdly citizen vigilante is a far more accurate telling of the morality of the odyssey 0.99

00:44:40.520 these these foreigners who have been inflicted upon your civilization are exploiting you harming 0.98

00:44:48.060 you uh and well the film is not exactly subtle about the message that tries to put across to 0.99

00:44:56.780 you about what you should do to such people and it just happens to line up perfectly with homer's

00:45:04.440 message in the odyssey but it happens to not line up at all with christopher nolan's interpretation

00:45:10.620 of how we should treat strangers so christopher nolan obviously talking about the foreigners

00:45:17.560 among us now and obviously trying to tell everyone and this is why the entire liberal order got behind

00:45:23.000 him and everyone's like oh no no this is a perfect film this is absolutely brilliant because the

00:45:27.060 message is you're supposed to accept all of the foreigners amongst you that's not the message of

00:45:31.220 the odyssey that's not the message of something that's more accurate citizen vigilante and there's

00:45:37.080 a reason why this film was completely stigmatized and nolan's odyssey has been absolutely glazed by

00:45:43.520 everyone around and so finally there's the end okay what do you do after you've gone out and

00:45:51.260 you've cleared out these suitors for some reason that doesn't even make sense on your own terms

00:45:56.400 what do you do then well in the odyssey Odysseus becomes king I mean he sees his father and he's

00:46:02.440 you know sad to see the dilapidated state of his father but afterwards at the very end he's he's

00:46:07.680 king again and he resumes his throne he is the person who brings order to Ithaca by taking his

00:46:14.940 rightful place on the throne and becoming a just ruler of his own kingdom that's not what happens

00:46:21.460 at the end of Nolan's Odyssey so okay we for some reason have like double violated the law of Xenia

00:46:27.480 now we have kicked out all of the suitors killed them all and now we're not even going to become

00:46:34.960 the king he instead sails to the west with penelope and just absconds and leaves the throne

00:46:40.280 to telemachus it's like okay well so what are we supposed to just abandon because i mean one of the

00:46:46.540 problems with telemachus as a the problem that telemachus the character has is that he's not

00:46:51.820 strong enough to kill the suitors he's not strong enough to do this on his own he's not the man

00:46:57.180 needed to be able to solve all the problems and so okay odysseus comes back he is strong enough

00:47:02.480 he deals with it and then it's his job to leave why i mean it's not explained at all in the film

00:47:09.880 but it doesn't make any sense but what's the message that's being said to young straight

00:47:14.820 white men no you should tolerate all the foreigners kick out the suitors and then you

00:47:22.600 should go no this is their civilization that they're the inheritors of this is what they're 0.92

00:47:28.020 coming back to claim and you're saying fundamentally that they shouldn't claim it that's very very 0.82

00:47:35.420 strange and incoherent and no i don't think we should just give up our civilization to foreigners

00:47:41.940 and no i don't think we should just tolerate all of the wrongs that are being done to us

00:47:46.620 and i don't think that nolan's odyssey was a very good film so anyway these were just the

00:47:52.600 things that stood out to me um if you want to support us go to shop.loses.com and get islander

00:47:59.640 magazine issue six is out it's amazing uh illiot it happens to dovetail really nicely with the

00:48:06.920 odyssey and citizen vigilante which is my essay on the scouring of the shire from the end of lord

00:48:14.440 of the rings the last book of the lord of the rings after the ring has been destroyed this was

00:48:20.700 left out of the movie but i understand why they leave out the movie but in the book after they

00:48:25.220 destroy the one ring they travel back and gandalf leaves them they get back to the shower and they

00:48:29.720 realize the shire is occupied much in the same way as odysseus court is by a bunch of henchmen

00:48:37.280 a bunch of strangers foreigners who are oppressing and enslaving the hobbits and extracting their

00:48:43.260 resources and well you can read my article to find out why they do this and what this means for the west 1.00

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 30, 2026

FREEMIUM： Nolan's Odyssey ｜ An Analysis

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