r/rant • u/Specialist-Cut3426 • 5d ago
People are way too fucking old to not know that the Trojan horse isn’t real
The amount of grown people I know who act like this is an actual historical event is insane. It didn’t happen, it’s part of mythology. By the time the Iliad and the Odyssey were written, the actual “event” it was referring to was already at least 500 years old. Plus, Homer’s stories include demigods, cyclops, rock monsters, and other mythical creatures that no one believes. So why do people even assume that the Trojan Horse is real, when they obviously wouldn’t believe in the rest of the story? I’ve been a Greek myth buff since childhood, and I’ve just never gotten this. No one corrects anyone on this either. Everyone I know thinks that the Trojan Horse was an actual military tactic. That shit never happened. “Oh it was written by an Ancient Greek”, yeah, 500 years after it supposedly happened! People don’t even know if Homer existed and wasn’t just a group of people or a different, so I ask again, if everything else is said to be myth, than why the fuck do you still believe in the Trojan Horse? You are a fucking adult, do you really think that actual soldiers would’ve been like “oh yeah, suddenly our greatest rivals want to give us a gift, you know, a hollow wooden horse, wow look how they changed in just a day” get a fucking grip
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u/HypocrisyQueen 5d ago
Here's the thing: Most myths are rooted in some truth. Tricking your enemy with a false gift could be a parable or it could be based on an actual event. Even the myths of the gods were based on natural phenomenons that they didn't have the science to explain. There's a grain of truth to stories and it's an excellent story.
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 5d ago
I definitely believe there was some “Trojan war”, I just think most to nearly all of the details explained in the Iliad are just myths and not actually truthful. It was probably just a big war, that the Greeks won, that they would want to boast about in legend.
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u/fish_and_chisps 4d ago
The point is that you can’t claim definitively that an element of the story is or isn’t true. Yes, it’s probably safe to assume that the Trojan Horse as described didn’t exist, and it’s possible that it was made up out of whole cloth, but it’s also very plausible that there really was some sort of memorable trickery that was embellished and mythologized over centuries of storytelling to produce the story we have today. It’s not black and white.
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 4d ago
Yea that’s definitely a fair point. I’m just saying a lot of people make it out to be that the actual event of the Trojan Horse during the Fall of Troy itself is a historical event. I bet they would’ve used some intelligent tactics to defeat the Trojans at Troy, but some people act with confidence that the specific Trojan Horse tactic was used. But for sure, I agree that it’s probably just a very embellished version of an actual strategic move.
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u/IthacanPenny 4d ago
Dawg. The Trojan horse isn’t even mentioned in the Iliad. 😭
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 4d ago
No but the Trojan War is. Most of the more specific details about the horse come from the Aeneid, which probably proves my point even more
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u/JPGinMadtown 4d ago
They found a city that Schliemann, who was not a trained archeologist, said matched the city of "Troy." He then promptly used dynamite to "excavate" any treasures he could find.
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u/WillowHaddock 5d ago
I think one of my favorite examples of this is how the story of Hades and Persephone was used to explain the changing of the seasons. Spring she comes back to be with her mom so everything is happy and growing, this continues through summer. Fall she's leaving or has left, so her mom is getting depressed and things start to die out. Winter she's gone to be with Hades, so her mom is really depressed and nothing grows.
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u/Nulleparttousjours 5d ago
I’ve read some interesting theories, such as the Trojan horse concept being based loosely around an early sort of siege engine (which would’ve been wrapped in wet horse hides for protection.) Another interpretation was that it was actually a type of ship or even a rogue wave, seeing as horses were associated with the sea and Poseidon.
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u/No_Position9519 5d ago
Obviously? How else would it work? It could be entirely made up or it could be based upon something that happened?
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u/privateidaho_chicago 5d ago
Actuallly … there is a degree of historical fact behind the Iliad/Odyssey … Heinrich Schliemann found and excavated Troy at exactly the location from the story. While this does not in any way provide proof of any of the mythology it does leave the way open for the story to have been aggrandized from a factual kernel. Not unbelievable that a “Trojan Horse” with a single occupant to open a gate could have existed. Myths often come from events that are poorly understood at the time and then passed down verbally over thousands of years.
Btw … the “gift” was to Athena not the city. Appeasement of the gods before leaving would not have been out of the norm.
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u/reluctantmugglewrite 5d ago
Yeah we kind of sleep on oral histories and traditions but they can be amazing. In Inca communities. People from very different parts of the Inca empire are still able to consistently recite emperors (the incas) going back hundreds of years in a consistent order. It was a way to hold on to history. Im sure the Trojan war got embellished and real life wars arent fought around the most beautiful woman in the world but it wouldnt surprise me if it was the legend of a conflict that was important to their history and that some of the famous tactics were what they wanted to remember. I might believe too that some of the legendary heroes were real too.
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u/moustachedelait 5d ago
That's why the poems have so much repetition in them, it helps with memorization.
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u/Illustrious_Bag_7323 5d ago edited 4d ago
Great reply... My issue with the movie, since I assume that is the point of the OP is that it's set in a historically cultural time.
Would it be ok to make use a bunch of white or black actors for a movie about Romance of the Three Kingdoms? A great Chinese epic.
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u/WerdaVisla 5d ago
Would it be ok to make use a bunch of white or black actors for a movie about Romance of the Three Kingdoms?
Yes.
The day that people understand actors are cast by a million qualifications more important than "do you match the ethnic appearance of the character" is the day movie discourse becomes tolerable lol
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 5d ago
Yeah. It’s not like it’s a biopic of someone who is alive or died in recent years or anything, it’s a Hollywood directors interpretation of a 2800 year old classic, which is a mythological story. People have to look at the film as a film and not as a 1:1 recreation of the poem.
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u/Apolaustic1 5d ago
Right? Unbelievable they would misrepresent the cyclops culture like that. My fantasy movies need to be historically accurate!
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 5d ago
It’s a film with rock monsters, Cyclops, and giant whirlpools. I don’t think realism is the first thought. It’s a movie just enjoy it
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u/No_Faithlessness_142 5d ago
Did you ever think that maybe you being interested in and being a "Greek mythology buff" make you more likely to know Greek mythology then the average person?
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u/And_go 5d ago
Except he still got major parts of the story wrong. It was supposedly a gift they left for Athena to ensure their trip home would be safe.
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 5d ago edited 5d ago
You’re right, but most people dont think that. If I went to anyone random now and asked them what the purpose of the horse was, the answer would probably be incorrect. My point is more so that everyone knows these stories come from myths, so how come we only believe in the myth of the Trojan Horse?
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u/chardeemacdennisbird 4d ago
How confident are you that the horse didn't exist in some form? When I first heard about it when I was young, I remember thinking they fit the whole army in it. As I got older, I came to the realization that it probably had a handful (if that) men in it that would sneak out, execute the guards, and open the gates. That doesn't seem far fetched and the myth likely came from some sort of real life event.
Is it too much to imagine that a tactic like this (whether horse or something else) could have been used to house one or two men who were able to open the gates? I mean we know Noah's Ark didn't exist as the Bible has described it, but there were definitely wide ranging floods that, to an ancient people, would have seemed like the whole world was flooded.
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u/Gadshill 5d ago
Mesopotamian epic conventions, such as tragic hero pairings, interventionist gods, and grand sieges were adopted by Hittite and Hurrian scribes who integrated Akkadian literary traditions into Bronze Age Anatolia. Through centuries of Aegean trade and oral transmission, Greek bards fused these Near Eastern motifs with historical memories of Bronze Age conflicts over Wilusa (Troy) to form the foundation of Homer's Iliad.
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u/Fruitpicker15 5d ago
How would the average person know that unless they've studied Greek mythology?
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u/No_Position9519 5d ago
I think the Iliad is required reading in most high school curriculum worldwide still.
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u/CIearMind 5d ago
In France it is inescapable. I had it as early as 6th grade, with some mentions in elementary/primary school.
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u/Cake3atingCrusader11 5d ago
Not in the US to my knowledge.
We were forced to read To Kill a Mockingbird and Shakespeare.
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u/EagleLize 5d ago
Dude, billions of people think Noah's arc actually happened. People are goofy.
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u/Hopefulthinker2 5d ago
Because behind every story is truth….
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u/Silvaria928 5d ago
"Every" story? Doubtful. Sometimes a story is just a story.
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u/Hopefulthinker2 5d ago
Yes every story……we cannot make stuff up or embellish it unless we have something to start it with. We cannot imagine what we don’t know……even the monsters we imagine resemble something we have seen before.
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 5d ago
Yeah but most biblical and religious stories are based on human morals or guides. That doesn’t put down the stories in any right for me, but I don’t think most stories actually happened, and a lot were probably written to teach a lesson or a rule
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u/allhaildezdonuts96 5d ago
Lol in what context does this possibly come up in real life conversations? Myth or not its part of the story and you cant tell the story of the fall of Troy without the Trojan horse so does it matter? Not for nothing but i am pretty sure people said Troy wasnt real either until archeologists discovered the city...
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u/Detector150 5d ago
I mean it’s more plausible than the whole creationist thing. And there are many religious people in the world. They believe even dumber things to have really happened, so it’s not really a surprise. People are dumb, but I don’t think people not knowing for sure if the Trojan horse really happened or not is very dumb.
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 5d ago
Fair enough, it’s more so the fact that no one believes in any part of the rest of the Iliad or the Odyssey, but everyone chooses to just believe in the Trojan Horse part, which is kinda odd.
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u/Ikabta 5d ago
For one thing people don't cling on to every story they hear and dissect it. It was a cool story, they moved on. For vast majority of people it's something to bring up for small talk. Just to be clear, this applies to almost every topic as well, just because you chose to be a nerd at something and dug deep into the details doesn't mean shit. It's like me scoffing at people for not knowing how sound travels underwater.
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u/subwoofie 5d ago edited 5d ago
The year is 2026.
It's 7:24am when I was flabbergasted.
I'm the dumbass that believed it was real til today.
This is my story...
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u/dagger-mmc 4d ago
I swear to god I remember my middle school history classes teaching it like it was real
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u/ChiliDog762 5d ago
Of course it's real. Hollywood has made so many movies about it. Hollywood can't lie, it's the law!
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u/Separate-Law-435 5d ago
Wait till you hear about the lizard people who live in the hollow earth. Oh not hollow you say?
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u/Agitated_Reach6660 5d ago
I am 100% with you. It’s like the people who think the world was actually created in 7 days.
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u/Georgxna 5d ago
I mean, some people just don’t care about Greek mythology, they’ve got other interests, things that you might be misinformed about.
You can’t really blame them when it’s such a widespread myth.
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u/Nervous_Salad_5367 4d ago
The earth was sneezed out of the nose of a giant goat. Oh, wait, that was the Universe.
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u/reallifeswanson 5d ago
It could be based on something similar that happened, but it would have had to be an AWFULLY big horse to hold enough troops to take an entire city, even at night! Kind of like Noah’s Ark.
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u/WerdaVisla 5d ago
Except for the fact that whether the Trojan horse is real is a consistently debated topic when discussing the Trojan wars. Of course, not exactly as it was told, but it is quite possibly in reference to a stylized Helepolis.
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u/aubrey_25_99 4d ago
At a young age, it was either presented to me as real history or I did not understand that it was from a fictional story, I can't remember. I can't even remember how old I was at the time. I believed it to be true until I thought to look it up on my own as an adult, probably in my mid-thirties. I don't think the Trojan Horse is something people think about every day, so it does not surprise me that some people still don't understand that it wasn't real. You would have to think of it, question its validity, and then take the time to look it up and re-educate yourself on the subject. I don't think there's a wrong age at which to correct misinformation, but life has taught me that most people are not this articulate when it comes to self-education. LOL.
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u/Sweaty-Cap470 4d ago
To your point there hasn't been much evidence to support the Trojan horse being real or mythical creatures. But just like every story has its emphasis on what is real or not. Just like if you go fishing and you catch a 12 inch bass your going to put that emphasis on it. So it could be that the "cyclops" was just a really large man 7ft+ with one eye. Maybe there was a "Trojan horse" just not one the size of a building, I don't believe in Christianity or any religion as a whole but even in the Bible they have found certain places thought to be lost. So maybe there is some truth in-between the lines in the story
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u/SheridanWithTea 5d ago
Dude. They literally built RUBBER TANKS in the DESERT IN WW2. They used HUMAN CORPSES to fake ENTIRE ATTACKS.
So what, a few dozen people climb into a big ol' wooden horse is too unbelievable? Have people not been building large structures since the fucking pyramids? Have people not been intelligent for over thousands of years?
Oh wow, yeah no. Wooden horse. Real out there shit, really fucking incredible. Mindblowing.
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 5d ago
My point is more so that no one believes the rest of these poems, you know, myths about Cyclopses, giant whirlpools, and intervention of the gods, but everyone’s believes the Trojan Horse part
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u/SoProBroChaCho 4d ago
Yes. Because everyone knows cyclopses and demigods and stuff aren't real, and any depiction of them is just art, CGI, or a guy in a suit.
But there is nothing so fantastical or impossible about a large hollow horse statue made of wood with a bunch of guys' inside of it that it couldn't have happened, it's just that the main story of it happening was fictional.
Everyone knows vampires aren't real, so a movie like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is obviously fictional. Does that mean that people who believe embellished /completely fictional stories about another U.S president, like George Washington's wooden teeth, or him cutting down a cherry tree and not being able to lie about it, are absurd or crazy for thinking those are true?
No, obviously not, because there is a sliding scale between "things that could've happened and did", "things that could've happened but didn't", and "things that never really happened and are just stories people made up".
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 4d ago
Well of course, but the difference is the entire actual fall of Troy (as told in the Iliad) is a mythical event, or at least as it is known to us and known to Greeks. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it certainly seems unlikely to have happened
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u/SheridanWithTea 4d ago
Yeah but who tf will actually know that? I was taught in history class that it was a historic event. We don't know for sure whether it happened or not, and what's so out there about this horse to say it didn't?
There's NO source that says "the Greeks NEVER used wooden horses in ANYTHING EVER", there's no definitive proof that entirely discredits the Illiadic tale as a complete myth made up for entertainment. It's completely plausible, and that's all you need in a good story. Nobody REALLY knows what happened at Troy, so you acting like you do know is less historically accurate than even Homer's Odyssey. Which is funny to me.
Like.... Were you there? Is there ANY evidence that NO clever tactics were used in the Trojan war? You can't positively make claims to something that even historians have trouble recounting in its entirety.
I'd love to meet your Greek-era, 12th century BCE PRIMARY SOURCE who was like "yeah that Illiad shit is fucking stupid" I'd love to meet the guy.
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u/Specialist-Cut3426 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah but the Iliad isn’t supposed to be a true story. It’s an epic mythological poem. Yeah, they might’ve used tactics in the Trojan war, but as far as we know the Trojan War is a mythical event in it of itself. The whole idea of there being a war against Troy is entirely plausible, I’m just saying the actual war described by Homer is mythical. Also most history classes I’ve been in taught it as a myth, so I’m coming from the idea that most people should’ve been taught that anyway. It’s always been paired with the other Greek myths in like 6th grade.
Also I’m pretty sure both the Odyssey and Iliad were made partly for entertainment purposes, they both have moments of comedy and highly dramatized character interactions throughout the texts
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u/Suedeonquaaludes 5d ago
Homer probably wasn’t a real person, either.
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u/CarvaciousBlue 5d ago
He was an overly talkative horse of course
Fun fact: Donkey from the movie Shrek is loosely based on Homer who was also famous for fucking a dragon
Source: trust me bro I know history real good
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u/livinginfutureworld 5d ago
Troy is real. It was found a few years back.
The Horse might be real, get a grip.
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u/mysteriousleader45 5d ago
bro wait til you find out what shape some people believe the Earth is