The Iliad is one monster of a book it's more than 600 pages long and the crazy part was it used to be passed down through oral tradition meaning it was someone's job to memorize the damn thing and regurgitate it into the Willing ears of whoever was listening on top of that if I had to guess how many named characters were in it I'd put the number somewhere between 200 and too many luckily for us though there's only a few characters we actually need to care about on the Trojan side those are Hector Paris and Helen and on the Greek side we've got Achilles Petrus odys Agamemnon boo metus diamides Ajax the greater and Ajax the Lesser along with the few others now back in the day Troy was called ilas which is why the book is called The Iliad translated literally it' be called Troy story you got yeah [Music] [Music] yeah book one so our Story begins 9 years into the Trojan War when Agamemnon makes the dumbest decision of his life and pisses off Achilles the most powerful warrior in his entire Army basically Agamemnon had taken this girl cus prisoner and her father a priest of Apollo came to try and get her back he offered Agamemnon Untold riches or whatever which Agamemnon turned down on the principle of being an so predictably enough this powerful and desperate priest of Apollo prayed to the god in question who gladly started reigning down plagues upon the Greek army Agamemnon is somehow surprised that pissing off the super powerful deity could go so badly for him but still refuses to return and the girl until Achilles starts verbally slapping him around to the point that Athena has to physically come down and stop him from straight up murdering his commanding officer by the way you may have noticed that there seem to be an awful lot of gods in this story no you ain't seen nothing yet so agamon finally agrees to return the girl to her father but there's one condition Achilles will in exchange have to give Agamemnon his chosen lady toy a gorgeous last named brus Achilles though thoroughly bummed does the smart thing and gives her up then he does the not smart thing and refuses to fight he curls up into a sulky blanket burrito in his tent and refuses to come out for anything now Achilles is by far the most powerful Greek warrior among them later myths even painting him as invincible so this is a pretty hefty loss for the Greek forces Achilles then proceeds to make things even worse for them by praying to his mom a minor goddess named thetus to get Zeus to help the Trojans that's right he's so pissed at Agamemnon that he's willing to make them lose the war out of spite of course since I also hate Agamemnon this doesn't really bother me all that much but still not cool bro book two so Zeus as we all know likes nothing better than screwing with Mortals so he's all for this plan he sends a dream to AG urging him to attack Troy full force and promising him Victory so agamemnon's like great idea nothing bad has ever come from me listening to the gods and then Hector here's a similar message from Zeus and immediately Marshals his forces to attack book three is a list it's it's just a list the person rattling off the list is Helen who punctuates her description of the Greeks with a lot of self-loathing commentary but wait this book actually has some action shock I know menus Helen's real husband challenges Paris Helen's current husband to a duel Paris is all for this plan but there's just one problem Paris is a total wimp men kicks his ass but before he can kill him and solve the war for good Aphrodite decides to intervene and whisk Paris off the battlefield and off to Helen's Chambers Helen's like God damn it Aphrodite what do you want and Aphrodite is like now kiss side note that interaction pretty much summarizes the entire dynamic between Paris Helen and Aphrodite the stories a little more complicated than this but basically Aphrodite promised Paris the hand of the most beautiful woman in the world in exchange for a golden apple specifically the golden apple of discord crafted by aa's goddess of Discord who was pissed after not getting invited to a wedding the other two contenders for the Golden Apple were Athena and herrow who think would have better things to do he accepted and Aphrodite held up her end of the bargain by kidnapping Helen from her comfortable life as men as's wife and delivering her to Paris although some versions involve Paris kidnapping her himself so basically at this point aphrodite has done nothing but mess up Helen's life and the whole war is also kind of her fault so it's no surprise that nobody in the story really likes her that much anyway back to the actual plot so back on the battlefield meala is an Unholy degree of pissed riding in circles frothing at the mouth yelling come back here and die like a man you know the works so then in book four the gods discuss what to do and decide that abject chaos is way more fun than peaceful resolution so Athena pops down into the Trojan ranks and double dog dares an Archer to shoot at manalus the arrow whiffs the temporary truce between the two armies immediately dissolves and they all go back to wailing on each other so book five is all about this lesser known but incredibly badass Greek hero diamides so diamides is tearing through the Trojan Army you know like you do when Athena notices that two Gods she particularly dislikes Aphrodite and Aries happen to be interfering with the battle so she pops down to Dames like hey so I've given you magic eyeballs now you can tell who's secretly a God and who's not and let me be clear about this do not fight fight the gods you will lose unless it's aidite then fight all you want she's somewhere between marshmallow fluff and a baby chick in terms of battle prowess so Dames acknowledges and continues to tear his way through the Army when suddenly he sees Aphrodite doing her thing and lifting one of her injured dudes off the battlefield diamides is like none of that and Chucks a spear through her wrist so she's like ow it drops the dude in question and Zips back to Olympus whining incessantly meanwhile back at the front Apollo grabs the dude Aphrodite he was trying to save his name is anias by the way he's got his own book or something I don't know and Dames immediately tries to stab him Apollo's like step off kid some of us gods are a little sturdier than Aphrodite and Dames does the smart thing and backs off and then Aries shows up yay so Athena is like Dames why aren't you hitting him and he's like be because you told me not to and she's like forget what I said kid you're the best around and then Dames stabs Aries in the gut which video game logic tells me must make him the new God of War so Aries runs home to Zeus crying and Zeus is like mad up you gigantic disappointment so now Aries hurts on the outside and the inside book six is pretty boring someone tells Hector to tell the women of Troy to pray to Athena to stop diamides from single-handedly killing every single one of them so he does and they do but she doesn't and he continues to be awesome book Seven is a little more interesting Apollo's like hey Athena you know what would be cool if your chosen hero didn't end the war in one day that'd be cool right and Athena's like you make an excellent point let's stop the war and make Hector fight someone so they pause the war again you know I really don't think it should be that easy and the various Greek Heroes we actually care about hold an impromptu Lottery to see who gets to fight Hector great Ajax not to be confused with lesser Ajax wins the lottery and he and Hector duke it out until Nightfall at which point they both call it a d and go home so book eight is called the tide of Battle Turns and that's basically what happens the Greeks start losing and the Trojans start winning now it's time for book nine so agamemnon's like damn it it's almost like we're missing our strongest fighter and the gods are working against us what do you know so agamemnon's like I vote we run away who wants to run away and Dames is like you've got to be kidding me you called us cowards and now you want us to cut and run God this guy is so cool so agamemnon's like uh no no what I what I meant to say was uh who wants to go talk to Achilles and get him to fight with us again so he sends Ajax and odys to talk to Achilles who's still burrito up in his tent with Petrus so Ajax and odys are like yo agamon is willing to give you your girlfriend back along with a ridiculous amount of wealth and a few kingdoms if you get out there and help us fight and achilles is like nope he's a jerk in fact I sail home tomorrow unless something really tragic and unnecessary happens to make me stay in fight hey if it isn't my best buddy Petras I don't know what I'd do if this guy died that folks is what we in the writing Biz call foreshadowing book 10 is basically a metal gear solid Mission not even kidding so it's night and Agamemnon and menas gather some main characters and are like okay do we have some volunteers to infiltrate the Trojan camp and find out their plans and diam is like well I did just finish carving a bloody Canyon through the Trojan forces so sure I'm game and odsis is like you'll want me as well I have actual cognitive faculties quite rare among this Army so odys is the only sneaky guy in the entire Greek army gets partnered up with Mand diamides for a stealth Mission that's right this epic officially has everything now but at the same time in the Trojan Camp Hector has the same idea and sends a much less important character to scout the Greek ships predictably enough the two stealth teams encounter each other and Dames and Odysseus capture and interrogate the poor guy he's like I'll tell you everything and Odysseus is like huh balling and then they decapitate him using the information odys extracted from him they sneak into the Trojan camp and steal an extremely fancy Chariot and some armor from a king excellent snake now it's time for book 11 the sun rises and it's back to where we go so today is agamemnon's time to shine and while he's busy kicking ass and taking names some minor hero that Achilles is fond of gets wounded so KES is like hey Petrus can you go out there and ask Nester who that was I need to make sure before I start feeling sad so Petrus does and Nester is like hey so it sure is nice of Achilles to feel bad when his friends start getting hurt but you know it' be even better if you know he helped out so that didn't happen so yeah could you maybe have a talk with him about that and pus is like I only promise to try Book 12 the war continues Zeus smacks the Greeks with a thunderstorm allowing the Trojans to start beating them man divine intervention is such a hack so this pushes the Greeks all the way back to the ships and in book 13 side and gets a little sick of Zeus hugging the show so he drops by to give the Greeks a Little Help by buffing the two axes with some stat boosts so then the Greeks start winning in book 14 Hara uses her feminine Wilds to distract Zeus from his efforts to buff the Trojans and depower the Greeks so the Greek army continues to win in Book 15 Zeus wakes up after being thoroughly wilded by Hera and gets Mega pissed to see that his favorite side is now losing Aries is like hey I think one of my kids down there just died this looks like a lovely excuse for war and Athena dope slaps the armor off him like idiot Zeus is already mad enough if you remind him of how much of a failure you are he'll get get even matter and Harry is like a so the tide of Battle Turns again and the Trojans start winning at this point it's really become formulaic by the time book 16 rolls around Petrus has gotten back to Achilles Like hey dude could I maybe persuade you to go out and fight our guys are kind of getting destroyed I mean even Agamemnon is injured and achilles is like ha nice Petrus is like seriously Achilles they're dying out there they need our help and achilles is like well I really can't have them burn our ships tell you what you go out in my armor and Lead my Army the jorgans will never know the difference between us and pus is like and anything for you [Applause] man and achilles is like just one thing promise me you'll come back [Applause] alive and Petrus is like of course I will bro and not 5 minutes later Hector kills him book 17 is pretty uneventful the Greeks see Petrus go down and collectively Hulk out to defend his body and Hector takes achill armor and wears it around book 18 the battle continues although now it's centered around defending petros's corpse meanwhile Achilles is still burrito up in his tent having no idea that his bestie is currently dead that is until a messenger arrives bearing those very Tidings causing Achilles to similarly hul out he's like that's it time to single-handedly kick Troy's ass and his mom thetus is like no Achilles you're fed to die if you fight and he's like I couldn't save my hetero life partner mom this life isn't worth living anymore and then the rest of the chapter is devoted to hephestus making Achilles new Duds in Book 19 Achilles puts on his new Duds yeah this uh this epic kind of drags on in places in book 20 Achilles carves a bloody murder Canyon through the Trojan forces despite various Gods best attempts to stop stop him in book 21 Achilles fills a river with so many corpses that the river itself gets pissed and starts trying to drown him so he beats it up until it stops bothering him then it gets distracted and starts chasing Apollo around the city because all the best heroes have ADD just ask any side questing Skyrim player in Book 22 Achilles finally remembers what he's there and after an extremely slapstick routine where he chases Hector around Troy several times he finally kills him yay then he ties Hector's body to his Chariot and rides it around Troy three times to parade the body off to Hector's father the king yay and the rest of the book is actually pretty boring the Greeks hold petros's funeral during which they basically just play a lot of party games and then at some point after The Iliad cuts off but before they officially sack Troy Achilles gets shot in the heel by Paris and dies yay e