Tuesday, December 3, 2013
"The Iliad" Educational Video and Heroic Elements?
What significant idea presented within The Iliad Educational Portal Link Video helps you establish a better understanding of the Heroic Elements: Heroic, Hubris, Guest/Host (Xenia)? Why? Please explain and defend your thinking using references to the video's content. This blog response is due by 2:30p.m. today.
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This video shows the heroic element within the myths by explaining the importance of the storie and characters within the illiad and the oddyssey. It explains each character and their importance in a way that you can easilly understand who the hero (such as odysseus) is. It also shows the guest host element by explaining the cause of the Trojan war, (the kidnapping of Helen.) It explains that people in mythology have trouble processing their own mortality, though eventually we all die. And though he seemingly feared death, Accilies became a great warrior.(Going back to the heroic element.)
The law of Xenia helps me understand the concept of guest/host relationships. The law that evey city must offer hospitality to every traveler, and every guest must be respectful of their host and offer them information of the outside world. And the fact that this law was broken caused the trojen war, and the Illiad.
This video taught me something I had no idea about. Xenia goes far past guest/host relationship, it is a a divine law enforced by Zeus that you must take in and offer hospitality to wandering strangers. Xenia also incorporates the other heroic codes. Paris breaks the code of Xenia and starts the Trojan War. This video gave me a better understanding of ancient social issues.
The greeks always gave the heros in the myths great stories and backgrounds. Calling the main character "great", "brave", and "the strongest" always made the heros have great hubris. This video helped me understand the guest/host relationship better because of how it explained "no one would travel if they did not think they'd have a place to stay". Many of the wars were started because of xenia though so that help me understand the results to betrayal of the guest/host relationship.Achilles story helps explain Hubris to me because of his desire to go to Troy to gain respect and prove his strengths. Also that in the fight with Troy he decides to fight only to have his name remembered for ages even though his mother has warned him he will die that way, he only wants to be remembered.
After watching the video there were a few heroic elements that I was shown. Xenia is explained as a divine law, created by Zues, that says you must be kind to traveling strangers. Xenia was necessary at this time because with out hospitality, traveling could not be done for shelter is needed. In the Illiad Paris violated that guest/host relationship by stealing Helen even after Menelaus gave him shelter. Also in Illiad, Achilles could not become immortal so his only alternative was to gain honor and fame through his fighting. Both of these things relate to Heroic code. Because of Achilles pride (hubris), he denies the peace offering and leads to his own lovers death. Also, his thirst for glory led to his own choice, even when he was told a way to avoid death. Obviously hubris or too much pride usually would end in downfall. So there are many examples of heroic code, hubris and xenia in the Illiad!
The significant idea presented within The Iliad Educational Portal Link Video that helps me establish a better understanding of a guest/host relationship is the law Xenia or that the guest gains as much as the host does. This law means that when the host offers something the guest offers something to match up to the hosts’. An example of Xenia would be the host offers a room for the guest to stay in and the guest might clean the house, or cook for the host. This helps me understand guest/host relationships better by letting me decipher what a healthy relationship is versus an unhealthy one.
I found it interesting how Achilles was driven completely by his mortality and his quest for eternal glory. Just about every choice he makes is because of his hubris. Because Zeus is the god that enforces xenia, and Achilles is the one that made the Trojans pay for their violation of xenia, I think Zeus may have been helping Achilles during the war.
Xenia goes far past guest/host relationship, it is a a divine law enforced by Zeus that you must take in and offer up himself and his hospitality.In the Illiad Paris violated that guest/host relationship by stealing Helen even after Menelaus gave him shelter. Also in Illiad, Achilles could not become immortal so his only alternative was to gain honor and fame through his fighting.
This video helps me understand the relevance of the guest host relationship in the Iliad. According to the video the whole reason that the war was started was not because of Hellens kidnaping but because she was kidnaped during the time that Paris was a guest in the house of Menelaus. This is a huge violation of the guest host relationship and seems to turn a few of the gods against the Trogans. This shows how important it is not only to be a good host but also a good guest was for the ancient Greeks.
The thing I liked about the video was xenia. It guarantees that travels will have shelter and safety. It is another word for guest/host relationship pretty much. A part that I found intriguing in the Iliad video is when the two guys (forgot their names) were going to fight each other, and then they figured out that their grandfathers had a guest/host relationship. After figuring this out, they did not fight, traded armor with each other, and became friends. It shows the power of a good guest/host relationship, or the power of Xenia. It also shows when a guest/host relationship can go wrong, with the example of the Trojan war.
I think that the Law of Xenia shows a little bit of the heroic code, in a sense that it shows great honor to take in a wandering stranger. Also it gives the people a heroic value when they are attributed the words "Great" or "brave" they become much more powerful sounding. Hubris is another important theme, because of Achilles extreme pride, he feels he must be immortalized in the stories of the people, and goes to Troy, knowing that is where he will face his demise.
The video explained to me more about what the guest/host relationship is. I thought it just involved when there was a guest and a host involved in a situation. I had no idea that it was a law created by Zeus that was unanimously known by everybody. The fact that paris broke the code and the story of him doing it has been passed down for so many generations means that it was fairly significant at the time. It is like 9/11 will be to the next generation of americans and the world.
A significant idea in the video was how different heroes would use the guest/host relationship. I noticed that the stories told in mythology revolve around hubris, which is proven in the story of Achilles. Xenia is the divine law Zeus upholds about the heroic codes and that is why it is abug deal when reading about people breaking or honoring Xenia.
The video aided in teaching me about Xenia, a concept I really didn't understand before. I didn't realize that it was a divine law originally established by Zeus. Now it makes more sense why defying the law could result in such a disastorous consequence. It also helped me understand the necessity for Xenia, as if it didn't exist people wouldn't travel through ancient greece knowing that they would not have a place to stay and food to eat. I also found it interesting the killing a dishonorable man brings about no honor to the killer. In our society killing dishonorable people is often praised, which shows that the Greeks apreciated a fair and honorable fight. Also the idea of being immortal through your fame and glory is quite similar to the ancient Norse people who believed the same thing.
I think that the major idea in this video was how the guest-host relationship is extremely important in ancient greek civilization. It was considered more disgraceful to disobey a rule of Xenia than to commit any other crime during the time. When this relationship was disgraced, such as in the Illiad, it created such adversity and conflict that wars would ensue, people would die and others would be made heros and immortal in the minds of men. So through disgracement of the guest-host relationship, there causes strife which then creates heros.
From the video, the guest/host relationship seems to be most important. The entire Trojan War was caused by a bad guest/host relationship, leading to Achillies rampage. Without the guest/host relationship, Achillies would never have set off for war to gain immortatlity in fame. His hubris guided him in desecrating a large portion of the Trojan army, and his heroic abilities made him unbeatable, but none of that would have matter if the guest/host relationshio was not ruined by Paris. Based on the video, Helen, "the face to launch 1,000 ships," was not actually the cause of the war, but only the instigater from destroying the old tradition of Xenia.
"The Iliad Educational Portal Link Video", helps me understand the heroic element of the guest and host relationship because of how Paris betrays the rule of guest/host relationship with the King by stealing his wife. From the video I know understand that when guest enters the home of another, he must not do anything inside the house of the owner that could affect or harm the owner. Meanwhile, the host must also treat his guest nicely and not do anything harmful to him/her. But in this case, the rule was betrayed with Paris taking away the King’s wife when he was a guest in the house. If Paris had taken the wife when she was outside of the house, it would have been fine, but instead Paris became the King’s guest and betrayed the code.
After watching the Iliad educational portal link video, I have established a better understanding of the role of guest/host relationships and hospitality. One example of the violation of the guest/host relationship is when Paris steals Helen from Menelaus after Menalaus welcomes Paris into his home and the trouble that this action brings to Paris.
The video really emphasized how important all of the codes were to the Greeks. It even said that Zeus himself established the rule of “xenia”, so naturally, the Greeks would have followed it diligently. Xenia (hospitality to travelers) plays a big role in the guest/host relationship. Whenever someone went against it, they were considered dishonorable and insanely rude. On the topic of honorability, the video also portrayed the importance of the heroic code (particularly fame). Achilles was learning to accept his mortality and wanted to make sure that when he did die, he died an honorable, well-known man. He succeeded in that, seeing as we know about his victories to this day. The term “Achilles heel” is common-knowledge.
The idea of hubris, heroic code and guest/host was explained slightly more in the video. I understand that the violation of the guest/host code was an insult to Zeus, the host’s pride and was what caused the Trojan War. When Paris took Helen back to Troy he violated the code. The term hubris was explained by using “Achilles crying to mommy” as an example. Like Jason, Achilles uses powerful women to get what he wants in order to become well known. The heroic code was not as well explained, but the overall theme on the term is that every hero wants to be powerful, immortal and win the war.
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