Trojan War Wednesday: "The Concubine and The Prince"

Author's Notes for the NEW 3rd Installment of RAGE!

Housekeeping:

There’s a nice chunk of RAGE! Book 1 up on the Mythoversal site with a growing collection of Author’s Notes in the newsletter archive. I think I’m getting better at managing this, but a reader pointed out this week that I accidentally wrote two Author’s Notes on “The Routine”—one about the Achilles-Patroclus relationship and one about Briseis in the Ordinary World of her own personal Hero’s Journey arc. Oops!

As with any live performance, even one that takes place in a text-format over the course of months, there are bound to be bloopers. But unlike the Homeric rhapsodes, I have the ability to commit retroactive edits, so I appreciate any suggestions, typo-fixes, or questions that can help me make this story even better.

Author’s Note:

Speaking of retroactive changes, this past week’s installment was an in-fill chapter, a new Installment 3, with ensuing chapters being renumbered accordingly. In the new Installment 3, we meet Phoenix as he welcomes Achilles back from the raid on Cillecian Thebe.

In traditional sources, Phoenix was a surrogate father to Achilles and to Achilles’s foster brother, Patroclus. Although a natural-born mentor, Phoenix had no children of his own, having been cursed with temporary blindness and permanent impotence after a family scandal. Banished from his homeland, the former prince made his way to Phthia, where King Peleus hired him to look after his demigod child, Achilles. In gratitude for his loyal service, Peleus would later put Phoenix in charge of his vassal kingdom of Dolopia. When Achilles and Patroclus grew up and went off to war, Phoenix accompanied them, taking charge of a company of Achilles’s Myrmidon warriors.

When I went looking for existing Iliadic characters to reinterpret in a way that might diversify Agamemnon’s army, I found no better candidate than Phoenix. Although tradition often casts Phoenix as a Thessalian, I am presenting him as a disinherited African prince. Either way, Phoenix has an inspiring arc of redemption, arriving in Phthia as a disgraced exile, overcoming his shameful past, and building an unparalleled reputation in his adopted kingdom as a mentor, political advisor, life coach, and military commander.

But although Phoenix has always been depicted as a close confidant of Achilles, Homer’s Iliad doesn’t offer Phoenix much to do outside of a Book 9 scene in which he is sent by Agamemnon as part of a group to plead with Achilles to rejoin the war effort.

I will be giving Phoenix a greater role in my retelling while disrupting the Iliad with a broader diversity of represented cultures that the Bronze Age Mycenaean army would realistically have been in contact with.

Thank you for coming along on this journey, and keep letting me know how you think it’s going.

—Greg R. Fishbone, Mythoversal Author-in-Residence

Nine years into the siege of Troy, the greatest Achaean warrior, Achilles, is sidelined by rage and resentment following a conflict with his commander, Agamemnon. This short but intense phase of warfare leads to devastating losses on both sides, conflict among the gods, and great tragedy on a human level.

Rage! is a disruptive retelling of Homer’s Iliad, restoring diversity, inclusion, and equity to a three-thousand-year-old tradition.

Through retold myths, informational articles, and educational resources, Mythoversal seeks to foster a deeper understanding of traditional cultures, their impact on each other, and on the modern world.

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