Polyphemus

Her name does come from the name of a poisonous plant, so it must be worse than that.

We have Polyphemus.

He has Wolverine claws.

Plus, he can shoot a red beam out of his eyes, whether it's a punch dimension beam or a fire beam.

So there you actually do have an explicit appeal to the quote-unquote state of nature.

And you also see that in the Odyssey, and I always use the example of Odysseus in Polyphemus' cave, where Odysseus shows up and his men say, let's just steal this guy's cheese and wine and get out of here.

Not wine, because he's uncivilized, so he doesn't have wine.

But let's steal his cheese and milk and get out of here.

And Odysseus says, no, we need to wait for him to come back so we can be good guests.

because hospitality was an important value for the pagans.

And Polyphemus comes back and Odysseus says, oh, hey, big guy, I hope you'll treat us as proper guests in accordance with the laws of Zeus.

And Polyphemus says, Zeus, I don't care about his laws.

So the funny thing is, you mentioned it in our little chat beforehand.

It was an audiobook called Polyphemus.

That was my first paid VO

work.

What was really interesting about that is I have a tattoo planned that I haven't had time to go get yet to celebrate my first... unpaid and my first paid work okay and it's this really cool design with like a demonic cyclops skull with like a snake wrapped around it and like bearing its fangs

oh wow

and the reason for that particular design is because of a really funny coincidence when i was trying to get into this i joined the cast of what was going to be a fan parody of epic the musical And the people running that parody chose me to be the parody equivalent of Polyphemus the Cyclops.

Okay.

In later literature, their craftsmanship was praised by heroes like Heracles and even Hephaestus, so even in the earliest texts, the Cyclopes are tied to technological prowess.

Contrast that with Homer's Odyssey, where a different kind of Cyclops shows up, Polyphemus, a savage shepherd living on the island of Sicily.

He roams the caves and eats men like snack food, making him a real threat to Odysseus and his crew.

The scene is one of the most iconic moments in ancient literature.

Odysseus outsmarts Polyphemus by first making him drunk with wine, then sharpening a wooden stake until it glows hot and finally thrusting it into that single eye.

He tells the giant that his name is Nobody, or Oedipus depending on translation, and when the other Cyclopes ask why nobody heard him, Polyphemus thinks he's being mocked.

After fleeing beneath a herd of sheep, Odysseus gets away.

Now if you're thinking about Halloween costumes, the Cyclops idea is surprisingly practical.

I was thinking, too, because you do see, kind of like we just talked about biblical narratives, and I feel like you do see the virtues Homer talks about, which they're the fruits of the Spirit.

There's a lot of love and joy and peace that he's talking about, and I thought the point that was interesting was how he was talking about how Odysseus was able to exercise self-control and not revealing himself too early to the suitors, contrasting with Polyphemus, how he out of the pride and the glory, how he said his name, which is how the whole thing kind of spiraled out of control.

So that lack of self-control, and then Homer making the point to show how he's exercising self-control at the end of the movie, or at the end of the show, or at the end of the book.

But I was thinking about that from the standpoint of us, of the things that we call the fruit of the Spirit, which abide in you, through the power of the Holy Spirit, there are still virtues that Homer was talking about 3,000 years ago, and these are attributes that they were striving for.

Larry is as far as the special effects, but even then, I don't know what they do, what they add detracts from the movie that is not in the odyssey and what they omit detracts from it.

So I, Polyphemus, we know that he looks like a big Greek and he's got a beard and he's talk and he's smart and he, he banters back and forth with Odysseus.

In the movie, he looks like the Lodon's thinker.

He's naked and he's hairless and he doesn't talk much.

And before...

He had said during the conversation, he said, who are you? And he said, Utis, Utis, Utis, Utis.

So when they're on the process of getting away, all the Cyclopses say, Polyphemus, how can we help you? And he said, nobody did it.

Utis in Greek is nobody.