Experiencing Hektor by Lynn Kozak;

Author:Lynn Kozak; [Kozak, Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474245456
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2016-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

Aias/Hektor: 16.358–418

Now the narrative cuts back to Aias, whom the narrative last showed giving way, letting the ships catch fire as he recognized Zeus’s role in Hektor’s success against him (16.114–23; γνῶ at 6.119). But when the audience aligns with Aias again, he is ‘always’ trying to hit Hektor (αἰὲν, 16.355), slightly effacing Aias’s giving way, to suggest that their fighting has been continuous. The fight between Aias and Hektor has been going on for around fifty minutes of performance time (since 15.414), even longer if we consider a break between Books 15 and 16. The narrative switches audience alignment back to Hektor, who now is on the defensive, using his shield to avoid Aias’s many casts, because he knows how to fight (16.359–61); this recaps and confirms Hektor’s own claim of knowing how to fight, back in his single combat with Aias, over seven hours ago (7.234–43).22 And now, Hektor recognizes that the tide has turned against him (γίνωσκε, 16.362), but he defends his men anyway (16.363 cf. Aias at 16.119–21). This audience alignment with Hektor, the access to his knowing that he is losing and keeping on anyway, creates further audience allegiance with the Trojan hero.

But then the narrative immediately calls whatever allegiance has been built into question, because after a simile describing the rising of the Trojans’ terrified shouts like a thunderhead, the Trojans run, and Hektor runs, too, and ‘leaves his men behind’ (λεῖπε δὲ λαὸν/ Τρωϊκόν, 16.368f.).23 The narrative makes little effort to explain this sudden shift, which has profound implications for audience allegiance to Hektor’s character as he abandons his men to die, quite graphically, in the ditch (16.367–79). In terms of narrative, Hektor’s removal here from the battlefield allows for Patroklos’s ascendancy and for other Trojans to come to the foreground against him, including Sarpedon. But for me, it still leaves a sinking feeling, a gnawing that Hektor should not have run away, especially not with Aias holding out so well in contrast. Hektor’s flight disrupts the anticipated confrontation between Hektor and Patroklos that so many previous beats suggested, giving just a brief, teasing, glimpse of that fight, as Patroklos tries to hit Hektor, and Hektor escapes (16.380–3).

The narrative then switches audience alignment to Patroklos as he breaks through the front lines (πρώτας ἐπέκερσε φάλαγγας, 16.394) and then kills no fewer than twelve men in just under two minutes of performance time (16.399–418). Through these scenes, the narrative presents a seemingly unstoppable Patroklos – but is it enough to make an audience forgive Hektor for running away? In a review of the Game of Thrones episode ‘Hardhome’,24 Verge critic Emily Yoshida, writing about a White Walker (zombie) massacre that one of the show’s protagonists Jon Snow escapes from, says: “My heart says Jon should get a bonus score just for not dying, because it seemed all but inevitable for a second there …”25 While Jon Snow escapes, a new heroine, Karsi, just introduced in the same episode, falls at the hands of the

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