Today I learned about Philoctetes, a Greek archer circa Heracles’ time. In fact, Philoctetes was kinda like besties with Heracles, and when it came time for Heracles to die, his buddy was the only one with the stones to light Heracles’ funeral pyre. I’m sure it was wicked sad, but he understood that no one else was gonna do it, so he offered to pull the trigger and was rewarded with a set of poison-tipped arrows.

So Philoctetes is a kinda popular guy and is chosen to be a possible suitor for Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world. When she gets kidnapped as part of the awesome clusterfuck that was the beginning of the Trojan war…he has to go fight in it. Because he’s a suitor. So yeah, he goes to fight in the Trojan war because of this woman who doesn’t really care about him anyway.

 While futsing about and kicking tons of Trojan ass, he accidentally cuts himself on the foot with one of his poison arrows, which turns into this festering sore that gives off an awful odor. Naturally, his Greek compatriots do what anyone else would do in that situation: they drop him off on the Isle of Lemnos and leave him there to die. Because his foot stank.

 There’s a kinda-sorta Happy Ending, where Odysseus finds out he needs Heracles’ arrows to win the Trojan war after 10 years, and returns to Lemnos to grab them off of Philoctetes’ presumed dead body, only to find out he’s just been sitting there; meditating on what it’s like to be completely alone and need to turn to nature and your environment as your only company. They cure his foot with some good ol’ fashioned hand-wavery, and he gets convinced to go re-join the Trojan War.

 Ya see, the Myth of Philoctetes is rife with the heavy-handed metaphors I like in my Greek legends. He’s a pretty loyal friend, who doesn’t get the girl but has to fight for her anyway, gets abandoned by his fellow soldiers for dumb shit, communes with the sparrow for a while and kinda feels sorry for himself, then jumps back into the fray when given the opportunity for retribution. Yeah, a guy like me could really learn to identify with Philoctetes.

 Oh yeah, and the whole thing ends with him finding the little ninny Paris and murdering him, then Helen and Paris suffering in the Second Circle of Hell for all eternity. I really like that part.

-diggy

Today, I started the second of the Lord of the Rings book (the first of which I read something like 3 years ago), and was struck by what occurred in the very first chapter. The main guy, Vigo Mortenson, finds the guy who played Alex Treveleyn in that James Bond movie, and he’s all dead and everyone’s really sad.

But at the same time Frodo and Sam are kinda missing and no one knows where Charlie from Lost or the Cuter One went, so they’re all confused and sad and angry. So here’s what they do: they take the dead guy, spend time collecting the weapons of all the Orcs he killed, lay them in a boat a mile away, arrange him and his weapons in the same boat in a respectful manner, comb his hair (seriously), send the boat into the mouth of a waterfall to assure that his remains aren’t desecrated by carrion, then they write and sing songs that they made up on the spot, then figure out which way the Orcs took their friends and start sprinting after them to go kick a bunch of ass.

Like in a row, they did all of that, and had conversations the whole time explaining that they can’t dilly-dally.

I understand that they’re fictional characters in a book, but I got really depressed at the non-fantastical nature of the way it was presented. It’s heroic that they’re able to have such constitution in the light of dire events, sure sure. But the fact that they’re carrying all the stuff out before nightfall is just kinda par for the course.

I, in the meantime, woke up too late on Sunday, and lamented leaving a comic book at a friends’ house. That took like 45 minutes. Then I started reading the Lord of the Rings and whined that I wish I could spend an entire day just watching the extended versions, with a big buffet of food and wine in front of me. That was like another 20 minutes. Then when someone challenged me to make some food, I agreed that I would, read two more pages and then got up to search the internet for the last two Dr. Who episodes, e-mailed it to myself so I could watch them later, and felt very self-satisfied, completely forgetting about the food I was going to prepare.

Then Nick texted me to tell me the hockey game was on and asked if I wanted to go watch it at a bar with him for the rest of the afternoon, which of course I did. I’m probably going to get home around 8 or 9 having spent a lot of money to get drunk to a hockey game I don’t really care about, then I’m gonna start watching the Dr. Who episodes I had carefully set aside, while drinking some of that bourbon I bought yesterday. When I get hungry, I’m just gonna order take out, and when the internet connection slows down and I have to pause the episodes to allow it to catch up, I’m gonna wander over to the giant TV I barely use, and play a video game. Then come back and watch more television on the internet.

Around 1 or 2, I’m gonna be kinda well drunk, and start sending out texts about how I always cry during Doctor Who; and despite telling myself that this was the last serial television show I was gonna plow through for a while dammit!, and that it’s time to knock off some of those books in my pile, I’m gonna cue up Season 1 of Torchwood and sail into that for a while. Afterwords, I’m gonna re-read this post, marvel at it’s eerie accuracy, and have another drink. Then I’ll wonder what happens to my weekends, and why I never get anything done.

So yeah, today I learned don’t try to compare yourself to Aragorn, or you’re just gonna end up being disappointed. The dude was the twenty-sixth King of Arnor and wielded the sword Anduril. I can’t even make potatoes.

-diggy