Something I've been thinking about since watching #WakandaForever is how much of the film, whether intentionally or not, mirrors one of the greatest war epics ever written: Homer's Iliad.
Both stories feature a clash of two rival civilizations. And, more importantly, while featuring a large cast of main characters, both stories focus on a protagonist who has to grapple with the loss of everything they hold dear in life.
Achilles in the Iliad grapples with a prophecy that dooms him to die young. And he also faces a leader that publicly dishonors him (a big deal in Greek culture) along with the loss of his closest friend.
Shuri on the other hand faces the loss of all the people she cared deeply about. And in the face of these heart-wrenching losses, both Shuri and Achilles come to the same conclusions: nothing matters in a world full of this much pain. All that's left is blind vengeance.
Both challenge their culture's moral order as a result--and in a way that deals with the afterlife. Shuri questions why anyone should value the desires of the dead if there isn't any life after death and ignores SPOILER's wishes in order to fulfill her quest for vengeance.
And before he fully commits himself to vengeance, Achilles likewise bucks his culture's moral order by demeaning the Greeks' quest for glory. Because what's the point of it accumulating glory if it all leads to the same pitiful after life?
The big similarity, though, and the one that first caught my attention, occurs at the end. Because in the face of so much loss, what finally deters both characters from nihilistic revenge?
When they look their enemy in the face and recognize that their enemy has /also/ suffered.
When they look their enemy in the face and recognize that their enemy has /also/ suffered.
Through a poignant memory sequence, Shuri is led to recall all the events that happened to Namor's family and to see herself in the man she hates.
And while Achilles does kill his hated nemesis in the Iliad, afterward, he's brought face-to-face with his nemesis' father. In one of the most poignant scenes I've read in ancient literature, he then proceeds to weep with his enemy over everything both of them have lost.
And for both characters, as they look their enemy in the eye and either physically or metaphorically weep with them for their shared losses, grief is the path to healing and restoration of self.
There are several other similarities I could touch on. Both characters lose a key loved one about the same structural place in the story. Both have an "armor-forging experience" soon after. And if I were to grossly oversimplify things, both plots revolve around a kidnapped woman.
But the similarity I'm most interested in is how both stories point toward the importance of communal tears to the process of healing after unimaginable loss. And in how one of the most important things we can do is to be able to see ourselves in our personal & political foes.
These themes are what have made the Iliad my favorite work of literature the more times I've read it.
And they're also why I view #WakandaForever as one of the few sequels that manage to exceed the original.
And they're also why I view #WakandaForever as one of the few sequels that manage to exceed the original.
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