Patroclus And Achilles In The Iliad

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Decisions are extremely difficult to make in the moment, but scrutinizing them when looking back on what has already occurred is a much less stressful task. In Homer’s Illiad, this dynamic plays an extremely important role within the war and especially with the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus. These best friends ended up playing vastly different roles in the war, as Achilles refused to participate due to being shames, while Patroclus was doing just the opposite and ended asking Achilles for approval to wear his armor in order to scare the Trojans into thinking Achilles returned. Achilles agrees, despite understanding that he is putting Patroclus into possible danger, but does ask him not to go too far and to only strike fear into the …show more content…
In this story, Achilles still respects his fellow soldiers, especially his best friend Patroclus, but is still trying to show the rest of his side that they made a mistake allowing him to be dishonored. Despite that, he puts at least some of his pride aside and allows Patroclus to pose as him by wearing his armor and that decision had much to do with different aspects of being a soldier and understanding what it is to blindly help and be loyal while also understanding the dangers and pursuing glory. Achilles understands that the Greeks are in a place of danger when Patroclus comes to him and decides to let his best friend risk his life to use his armor, but does not go himself which shoews that he was still thinking about himself in some capacity during his thought process of whether or not to help Patroclus. He may have decided to allow it both for himself and for his soldiers, including Patroclusw, but it surely was not a purely selfless deicison. It is much easier to reflect and have many different opinions on a choice after it is made, but it is extremely difficult to truly understand how circumstances and values impacted a decision at the time it was made, but everything that is involved in being a soldier played a huge role in Achilles letting Patroclus use his armor and pose as the great