(1) ODYSSEY

 

Well obviously, except I’m not talking about the Odyssey as a whole but the actual odyssey part of the Odyssey, often more formally titled the Wanderings of Odysseus. The otherworldly Odyssey. The mythic fantasy adventure Odyssey. The Odyssey’s monster mash. What we think of when we think of the Odyssey.

In other words, the part for which most people come to or keep coming back to the Odyssey, or at least remember most about it, in the style of the trope Just Here For Godzilla in TV Tropes.

Except in the case of the Odyssey, Godzilla is the Cyclops, or the Sirens, or any or all of the mythic fantasy elements of this part, which after all is the mythic fantasy adventure or otherworldly core of the Odyssey – and certainly has the most exciting action set pieces, with one arguable exception in the part in my second place entry. While the other parts certainly have their supernatural or divine elements, this is the part where those elements are wall to wall – and play their most direct role as antagonists or obstacles to Odysseus.

Ironically, it is only a third of the Odyssey – Books 5-12 out of 24 books. And let’s face it, Books 5-8 are the more mundane tail end of the fantasy odyssey part, recounting the wanderings of Odysseus from Calypso to the Phaeacians, which might more accurately be considered as the prelude to Odysseus’ homecoming.

The core fantasy odyssey of the Odyssey is in Books 9-12, which recount the wanderings of Odysseus from Troy to Helios’ cattle. Interestingly, the contents of these books are the story within the story, told by Odysseus himself to the Phaeacians – which begs the question of how true it is, given Odysseus’s defining traits of deception and disguise. Even more interestingly, Nolan’s cinematic adaptation plays with this question, despite omitting the Phaeacians – here the deception may be self-deception, lying in Odysseus’ own mind or memory through a lotus haze.

Also, without the seven years with Calypso, Odysseus only spends three of the ten years of the Odyssey, well, odysseying – two if you also knock off the year with Circe (in the book that is, not the Nolan film adaptation).

But who cares? We’re just here for the odyssey.