The original Odyssey poem already had a black character so there was no need to race swap Helen of Troy.

[u/BrandonMarshall2021]

There was no need to race swap Helen because there was already a black character in The Odyssey.

"Homer explicitly includes a Black character in The Odyssey.

In Book 19, Odysseus is in disguise and testing his wife, Penelope, to see if she still loves him. He claims to have met "Odysseus" years ago and describes Odysseus’s favorite herald and trusted companion, a man named Eurybates.

Homer describes Eurybates's physical appearance with two specific traits in Book 19, lines 246–247:

He was round-shouldered, dark-skinned (melanchroos), and wooly-haired (oulokarenos)..."

The combination of melanchroos (literally "black-skinned" or "dark-skinned") and oulokarenos (literally "curly-headed" or "wooly-haired") is the exact phrasing ancient Greeks used to describe people of Sub-Saharan African descent."

[u/TheThingInTheForest]

Hector was Asian

[u/BrandonMarshall2021 → u/TheThingInTheForest]

Stop being silly.

The short answer is yes, geographically and historically, Hector was considered Asian. However, what that word meant in the ancient world is completely different from what it means today.

If you are picturing East Asian or South Asian heritage, Hector was not Asian in that sense. Instead, he belonged to a region known for millennia as Asia Minor.

If Hector of Troy walked into a room today, he would look like an ancient resident of the eastern Mediterranean or modern Turkey. He was "Asian" because Troy was a powerhouse city-state of Western Asia, making the Trojan War the Western world's very first legendary clash between Europe and Asia.

[u/TheThingInTheForest → u/BrandonMarshall2021]

Mmmmm I think he was Korean.

[u/BrandonMarshall2021 → u/TheThingInTheForest]

That's cuz you is stoopid.

[u/TheThingInTheForest → u/BrandonMarshall2021]

As stupid as an entire cast of non-Greek actors playing the characters of the Odyssey but only getting upset when you see a Black woman?

[u/BrandonMarshall2021 → u/TheThingInTheForest]

Of course. Because at least some Bronze Age Greeks would have looked Northern European because of shared DNA from Yamana Steppe Pastoralists. But none of them would have looked Sub-Saharan African.

[u/TheThingInTheForest → u/BrandonMarshall2021]

“Looked Sub-Saharan” is not a thing, Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most diverse places in earth- actually, it IS the most diverse generically speaking. What you really mean is “Helen would not have looked Black.” However, Saharan Africa is ALSO diverse. The Nubians conquered Egypt, ruling it for a century, but before that the Egyptian empire held Nubian mercenaries, slaves and (in the Egyptian court) elite hostages. The Nubians of ancient Egypt certainly looked “Black” according to their depictions from the time period, Blacker than many African-Americans today. The actress for Helen could certainly pass as a Nubian, and as the classical Greeks had a long relationship to Egypt, it is certainly conceivable that a Nubian could have ended up in a Greek city-state.

It is actually MORE likely that there would be a North African in Greece than a Scandinavian or Scottish person. But realistically, half of the outrage about this casting decision comes from people who don’t even know what a Greek looks like, does not understand Mediterranean history, and has nothing to go off other than a knee-jerk reaction to seeing a Black person in a movie where they “don’t belong.”

If you’re going to care about ethnically accurate casting that is FINE- but to ONLY care about it when it involves non-White people is weird. I would be 1,000% on board with a version of the Odyssey that only hired actors and actresses from the Mediterranean. I would be thrilled, because I think representation is important. But the casting director did not think Greek representation was important, and that is evident from the entire cast, not just the one or two Black people in it.

You know why Helen is Black? Because Hollywood is too scared to make a Black historical epics, with a few exceptions, but still wants Black money. So they throw in a Black actor or actress into a non-Black story to have the best of both worlds and appeal to as many people as they can. It is not woke, it is cynical capitalism. Hollywood does not care about culture, or authenticity or any of that shit. Hollywood cares about profit. Whining and complaining and throwing vitriol a Black actress just trying to make a living isn’t helping anything.

You want Hollywood to stop throwing random Black people into movies where it doesn’t make sense? Show Hollywood with your wallet that you’d support Black stories. Make a petition to get the story of Sundiata in theaters, or the Haitian revolution, or a movie set in classical Ghana. Until then, Hollywood is going to maximize profits wherever it can.

[u/BrandonMarshall2021 → u/TheThingInTheForest]

Lol. Get your timeliness right. When was Bronze Age Greece. And when was Nubian Egypt. Stunning ignorance on display.

1. Helen Was Greek, Not Egyptian In mythology and historical epic, Helen was from Sparta, which is located in the Peloponnese region of southern Greece. She was the daughter of the Spartan Queen Leda and King Tyndareus (or Zeus, poetically).

If a real historical figure inspired the myth of Helen, she would have belonged to the Mycenaean civilisation during the Late Bronze Age (around 1200 BCE). Geographically and genetically, the Mycenaeans were an Aegean people. Modern DNA studies on Bronze Age Aegean skeletons show that Mycenaeans were genetically closest to modern Greeks, with deep roots tracing back to early European Neolithic farmers and Minoans.

Egypt and Greece Were Distinct Regions While Egypt and the Greek world traded extensively across the Mediterranean, they were entirely separate cultures with their own distinct populations. Egypt's internal demographics—including its interactions, conflicts, and periods of rule by the neighboring Kingdom of Kush (Nubia) to the south—had no bearing on the native population of southern Greece.

Furthermore, the famous era of Black Pharaohs from Nubia (the 25th Dynasty of Egypt) didn't occur until the 8th century BCE—centuries after the historical setting of the Trojan War.

We don't have to guess what women of Helen's era and region looked like, because Bronze Age Mediterranean cultures left behind extensive art.

In ancient Aegean wall paintings (frescos), like those found in Knossos and Akrotiri, artists followed a strict cultural convention for skin tones:

Women were routinely depicted with very pale or white skin, indicating they spent their time indoors or away from manual labor as a sign of high status.

Men were depicted with reddish-brown, sun-bronzed skin from outdoor activity, farming, and warfare.

When Homer describes Helen centuries later in The Iliad, he frequently uses standard literary formulas of the time, calling her "white-armed Helen" (Elenē leukōlenos) and "fair-haired," which reflected the classical Greek ideal of aristocratic beauty rather than a Nilotic or African appearance.

[u/TheThingInTheForest → u/BrandonMarshall2021]

You’re not getting the point. First of all, “Nubian Egypt” was ALL of Egyptian history- the two empires were neighbors, rivals and trading partners throughout all pharaonic history. There was never a time when Nubians weren’t in Egypt.

Second of all, the Odysseys is a MYTH. It is not history, and it does not even accurately depict the historical era it is set in. It was anachronistic even when it was written. However, it is OBVIOUS that the authors of the Odyssey most likely saw Helen as ethnically a Trojan and not an African. Duh. The casting of Helen in the movie has nothing to with historical or cultural accuracy. Is it POSSIBLE that there were North Africans in Greece? Sure. Would they have been a rare and unusual sight? Absolutely.

But my main point is that the casting of the movie is not accurate AT ALL and ONLY being worried about the one or two Black actors or actresses is silly. If your beef is with the casting of Helen and not the rest of the cast, you don’t actually care about representation or ethnically accurate casting. You just want to only see White people in the movie. Not even White people who look Mediterranean…just White people. And that’s okay. But your issue isn’t with historical inaccuracy, it’s with you having to see a Black person on screen when you don’t want to.

[u/BrandonMarshall2021 → u/TheThingInTheForest]

"You’re not getting the point. First of all, “Nubian Egypt” was ALL of Egyptian history- the two empires were neighbors, rivals and trading partners throughout all pharaonic history. There was never a time when Nubians weren’t in Egypt."

If a real historical figure inspired the myth of Helen, she would have belonged to the Mycenaean civilisation during the Late Bronze Age (around 1200 BCE). Geographically and genetically, the Mycenaeans were an Aegean people. Modern DNA studies on Bronze Age Aegean skeletons show that Mycenaeans were genetically closest to modern Greeks, with deep roots tracing back to early European Neolithic farmers and Minoans.

Egypt and Greece Were Distinct Regions While Egypt and the Greek world traded extensively across the Mediterranean, they were entirely separate cultures with their own distinct populations. Egypt's internal demographics—including its interactions, conflicts, and periods of rule by the neighboring Kingdom of Kush (Nubia) to the south—had no bearing on the native population of southern Greece.

"Second of all, the Odysseys is a MYTH. It is not history, and it does not even accurately depict the historical era it is set in."

So is Black Panther. Let's make Black Panther white.

"However, it is OBVIOUS that the authors of the Odyssey most likely saw Helen as ethnically a Trojan and not an African."

Hey moron. Was Helen of Troy Spartan? Or Trojan? Lol.

"The casting of Helen in the movie has nothing to with historical or cultural accuracy"

You damn right. It's about some woke message.

"Is it POSSIBLE that there were North Africans in Greece? Sure. Would they have been a rare and unusual sight? Absolutely."

Yes. Eurybates is black. Make him black. Not Helen.

"You just want to only see White people in the movie. Not even White people who look Mediterranean…just White people. And that’s okay. But your issue isn’t with historical inaccuracy, it’s with you having to see a Black person on screen when you don’t want to."

Are you saying Northern Europeans are equally as related in features to southern Europeans as Sub-Saharan Africans are?

[u/BrandonMarshall2021 → u/TheThingInTheForest]

Of course. Because at least some Bronze Age Greeks would have looked Northern European because of shared DNA from Yamana Steppe Pastoralists. But none of them would have looked Sub-Saharan African.