A story that is portrait as an act of heroism, yet is anything but that. The grief, the joy, the love, the moments of shame and hatred and everything that sits in between. The way Patroclus speaks of Achilles but how we never see him through anyone else’s eyes, never truly see who he is and yet, despite this, feel so much more for him. I find that it highlights, in a truly unique way, just how tragic this story is specifically in the manner in which Patroclus is forgotten; how, in the end, it is only the goddess who loathed him who grants him what he deserves and he deserves so much more. The gods are cruel, and this story is the very peak of that cruelty. Love amidst hatred and war. Love persisting, changing, while everything else dies, while everything else becomes insignificant. This story, this book, shwos the pain of that love, of that war, and of that friendship, in a way that breaks the heart the same way that it broke Achilles.