Sing, goddess, the rage of Achilles.
That’s how it starts. Not with love. Not with “once upon a time.” Just pure, uncut rage. The feeling you get when the world doesn’t recognize your worth and you’d rather let everything burn than compromise.
The first European hero is Achilles: epic warrior, also a man so petty that when his boss takes his war prize, he has a complete meltdown, sits in his tent, and prays to Zeus to make his own army lose so they’ll realize how much they need him. Achilles develops main character syndrome in a war with no main character.
This is the founding gesture of Western individualism. The problem is: Achilles’ refusal has consequences.
