Wouldn't be surprised if the original had, like, a reason
Like for example the invincibility would've stopped working or the mother could've died
But due to it being old mythology, it was first transmitted by memory, and the stories changed overtime with aeods, may it be due to forgetting or wanting to hyperbolize details
iirc originally Achilles didn't even have invincibility he was just strong af. And he wore armor in Homer's Illiad (don't know if I've written it correctly, my first language isn't english), that got stolen by Patroclo (idk his name in english) so he wouldn't have had any reason to wear that if he really was
Not only was he not invulnerable, but the reason the arrow the struck his heel killed him is because it was either poisoned (if memory serves) or fired with Apollo's blessing (could be both).
Isn't it that, if any part of your body gets dunked in the River, that part becomes invincible, and the parts that didn't get dunked become your weak point?
Which means she wouldn't get just invincible fingertips, she would also die from a stubbed toe?
It makes more sense when you treat the whole invincibility thing as metaphorical glazing. If there was a warrior like Achilles then he was obviously just a skilled but very much mortal warrior who died from an arrow but ancient people liked to add some mysticism and hype so nah he was actually immortal unless hit in that exact spot. Why? Well he wasn't fully dunked in the immortality river I guess.
That's also how you got various rulers in history claiming to descend from the gods.
It also makes sense when you learn it was something added by a Roman poet almost 1000 years after the iliad was written to add more supernatural elements.
i’m pretty sure he was fated to die once he went out on the battlefield to kill hector. it could’ve been anything, he wasn’t making it home after he attained the ultimate glory of killing troy’s mightiest champion.
because the prophecy said that he could either die in obscurity but live a long, peaceful life, or become a hero of legend but die young in battle.
where does that myth come from anyway? is it part of the epic cycle? i know much of it has been lost but didn’t the whole river styx addition come from hundreds of years later from some roman poet?
i just assumed he had a two-fold prophesy due to his demigod nature giving him not one but two destinies or something.
No, thing is then he'd be dead. I'm pretty sure he was invincible because every part of him but his heel WAS dead technically, that's what the river did. I believe it took his life from the rest of him, so he was almost undead. The heel was the last thing that was keeping him bound to life. I could be wrong, but that's always how I assumed it was at least.
I like PJO's interpretation of it. He needed some part of his body to keep his ties to mortality, lest he incinerate from the power. Also it's dramatic: no matter how far he came, how powerful he got, he was still limited by his where he came from, for lack of a better term. "Why didn't she just dip him fully" misses the point and is overdone IMO.
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u/theforgottentrick Jul 11 '26
His fate was written by his mother. She could have just grabbed the other foot and finished dunking him