Classics Summarized: The Iliad

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Diomedes servant when?

👍︎︎ 13 👤︎︎ u/nicgri7 📅︎︎ Dec 04 2019 🗫︎ replies

Achilles: Bro, I love you like a bro

Patroclus: Me too, bro

careless whisper plays and petals fly

👍︎︎ 18 👤︎︎ u/mychildrenaresoft 📅︎︎ Dec 04 2019 🗫︎ replies

Can someone make the fanart of FGO!Achilles curled up in his blanket burrito style

👍︎︎ 8 👤︎︎ u/MarkGib 📅︎︎ Dec 04 2019 🗫︎ replies

OSP is always amusing with their videos honestly

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/Kagemoto 📅︎︎ Dec 04 2019 🗫︎ replies

OSP is great for this fans of FGO. I know I’m basically free advertizing here, but if you like lore and mythology or real life history, OSP will probably be rught up your alley. Also if you like quality amimation and good synopsis of stories.

👍︎︎ 8 👤︎︎ u/DiceCubed1460 📅︎︎ Dec 04 2019 🗫︎ replies

Punished Odysseus is the best

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/MrBallins 📅︎︎ Dec 05 2019 🗫︎ replies
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The Iliad is one monster of a book. It's more than six hundred 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 two hundred 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. On the Greek side, we've got Achilles, Patrocles, Odysseus, Agamemnon *BOOOO*, Menelaus, Diomedes, Ajax the greater and Ajax the lesser along with a few others. Now, back in the day, Troy was called Ilias, which is why the book is called The Iliad - translated literally, it'd be called "Troy Story." *Toy Story theme plays* Yeah, yeah. *Epic filler music plays* *Epic filler music continues* BOOK ONE So our story begins nine 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 Chryseis 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 asshole. So, predictably enough, this powerful and desperate priest of Apollo prayed to the god in question, who gladly started raining down plagues upon the Greek army. Agamemnon is somehow surprised that pissing off this superpowerful deity could go so badly for him, but still refuses to return 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. Eheheheheheh… you ain't seen nothing yet. So Agamemnon 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 lass named Briseis. 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 this by praying to his mom, a minor goddes named Thetis, 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 Agamemnon 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!!" Then Hector hears 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!) Menelaus, 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. Menelaus 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 "goddammit Aphrodite what do you want" and Aphrodite's like "NOW KISS" Side note! That interaction pretty much summarizes the entire dynamic between Paris, Helen and Aphrodite. The story's 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 Eris, Goddess of discord, who was pissed after not getting invited to a wedding. The other two contenders for the golden apple were Athena and Hera, who you'd think would have better things to do. He accepted, and Aphrodite held up her end of the deal by kidnapping Helen from her comfortable life as Menelaus'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 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, Menelaus 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 that peaceful resolution. SO Athena pops down into the Trojan ranks and double-dog-dares an archer to shoot at Menelaus. 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, Diomedes. So Diomedes is tearing through the Trojan army - you know, like ya do - when Athena notices that two gods she particularly dislikes, Aphrodite and Ares, happen to be interfering with the battle. So she pops down to Diomedes 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 the gods. You will LOSE. Unless it's Aphrodite, then fight all you want. She's somewhere between marshmallow fluff and a baby chick in terms of battle prowess." So Diomedes 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. Diomedes is like "NONE OF THAT" and chucks a spear through her wrist. So she's like "OW F*CK", drops the dude in question and zips back to Olympus, whining incessantly. Meanwhile, back at the front, Apollo grabs the dude Aphrodite was trying to save - his name is Aeneas, by the way, he's got his own book or something, I 'unno - and Diomedes immediately tries to stab him. Apollo's like "STEP OFF, KID. SOME OF US GODS ARE A LITTLE STURDIER THAN APHRODITE." and Diomedes does the smart thing and backs off. And THEN Ares shows up! So Athena's like "DIOMEDES WHY AREN'T YOU HITTING HIM" and he's like "Be…cause you told me not to?" And she's like "FORGET WHAT I SAID, KID. YOU'RE THE BEST! AROUUUUND!" And then Diomedes stabs Ares in the gut, which video game logic tells me must make him the new God of War. So Ares runs home to Zeus crying and Zeus is like "MAN UP, YOU GIGANTIC DISAPPOINTMENT" so now Ares 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 Diomedes 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 day 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. BOOK NINE. So Agamemnon's like "Dammit! It's almost like we're missing our strongest fighter and the gods are working against us!" WHADDYA KNOW. So Agamemnon's like "I vote we run away. Who wants to run away?" and Diomedes is like "you've gotta be kidding me. You called us cowards and now you want to cut and run?!" (god this guy is so cool) So Agamemnon's like "Uh - no! No, what I meant to say was… who wants to… go… talk to Achilles and get him to fight with us again…?" So he sends Ajax and Odysseus to talk to Achilles, who's still burrito'd up in his tent with Patrocles. So Ajax and Odysseus are like "Yo, Agamemnon's 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 and fight. Hey, if it isn't my best buddy Patrocles! I don't know what I'd do if this guy died." That, folks, is what we in the writing biz call "foreshadowing". BOOK TEN IS BASICALLY A METAL GEAR SOLID MISSION. So it's night, and Agamemnon and Menelaus gather some main characters and are like "Okay, do we have some volunteers to infiltrate the trojan camp and find out their plans?" and Diomedes is like "Well I did just finish carving a bloody canyon through the trojan forces, so sure, I'm game." and Odysseus is like *terrible Solid Snake impression:* "You'll want me as well. I have actual cognitive faculties - quite rare among this army." So Odysseus, the only sneaky guy in the entire Greek army, gets partnered up with my man Diomedes 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 Diomedes and Odysseus capture and interrogate the poor guy. He's like "I'LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING" and Odysseus is like "ballin'." and then they decapitate him. Using the information Odysseus extracted from him, they sneak into the Trojan camp and steal an extremely fancy chariot and some armor from a king. *mission successful music* Now it's time for BOOK ELEVEN. The sun rises, and it's back to war 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 Achilles is like "hey Patrocles, can you go out there and ask Nestor who that was? I need to make sure before I start feeling sad." So Patrocles does, and Nestor is like "Heyyyy… so it sure is nice of Achilles to feel bad when his friends start getting hurt… but it'd be even better if, you know, he HELPED SO THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN! So yeah, could you maybe have a talk with him about that?" and Patrocles is like "I only promise to try." BOOK TWELVE: 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 their ships. And in BOOK THIRTEEN, Poseidon gets a little sick of Zeus hogging the show, so he drops by to give the Greeks a little help by buffing the two Ajaxes with some stat boosts. So then the greeks start winning. In BOOK FOURTEEN, Hera uses her feminine wiles to distract Zeus from his efforts to buff the Trojans and depower the Greeks. The Greek Army continues to win. BOOK FIFTEEN. Zeus wakes up after being thoroughly wiled by Hera, and gets mega-pissed to see that his favored side is now losing. Ares 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 EVEN MADDER!" and Ares is like "d'aw… :( " So the tide of battle turns again and the Trojans start winning. At this point it's really become formulaic. By the time BOOK SIXTEEN rolls around, Patrocles 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. Even Agamemnon is injured." and Achilles is like "HA! nice." and Patrocles is like "Seriously, achilles, they're dying out there! They need out 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 Trojans will never know the difference between us!" And Patrocles is like "Anything for you, man." *Careless Whisper plays* And Achilles is like "Just one thing - promise me you'll come back alive." *Careless Whisper plays* And Patrocles is like "Of course I will, bro." *CARELESS WHISPER INTENSIFIES* Aaaaand not five minutes later Hector kills him. BOOK SEVENTEEN is pretty uneventful. The Greeks see Patrocles go down and collectively hulk out to defend his body, and Hector takes Achilles' armor and wears it. BOOK EIGHTEEN: The battle continues, although now it's centered around defending Patrocles' corpse. Meanwhile, Achilles is still burrito'd 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 hulk out. He's like "THAT'S IT TIME TO SINGLE-HANDEDLY KICK TROY'S ASS" and his mom Thetis is like "No, Achilles! You're fated to die if you fight!" and he's like "I COULDN'T SAVE MY HETERO-LIFE-PARTNER MOM THIS LIFE ISN'T WORTH LIVING ANYMOOOOORE" And then the rest of the chapter is devoted to Hephaestus making Achilles new duds. In BOOK NINETEEN, Achilles puts on his new duds. Yeah. This epic kind of drags on in places. In BOOK TWENTY, Achilles carves a bloody murder-canyon through the trojan forces, despite various god's best attempts to stop him. In BOOK TWENTY-ONE, 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 he gets distracted and starts chasing Apollo around the city, because all the best heroes have ADD - just ask any sidequesting Skyrim player. In BOOK TWENTY-TWO, Achilles finally remembers what he's there for 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. *hesitant applause* And the rest of the book is actually pretty boring. The greeks hold Patrocles' 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. *applause*
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Channel: Overly Sarcastic Productions
Views: 3,033,320
Rating: 4.9460506 out of 5
Keywords: William Shakespeare (Author), Shakespeare Summarized, Funny, Summary, Iliad (Book), Classics (Field Of Study), The Iliad, The Iliad Summary, Classics Summarized: The Iliad, Chibis, The Iliad Is Adorable, Homer, Homer's Iliad, Troy, Ilias
Id: faSrRHw6eZ8
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Length: 11min 56sec (716 seconds)
Published: Fri Jan 23 2015
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