Mark Gagnon

And then later on, medieval European kingdoms would compete to basically claim Trojan ancestry.

So the Franks said that they descended from Trojan refugees who escaped.

And then the Britons, through Geoffrey Monmouth, claimed their founder was a Trojan named Brutus.

Troy became the original myth that basically all of Europe fought to claim.

Now, the philosophy, the Iliad basically gave us the concept of the tragic hero, the idea that greatness and destruction were kind of inseparable and that the things that make someone extraordinary are also the same things that doom them.

Achilles choosing glory over this long life and getting exactly that is the prime example, right?

This framework, the hero who is undone by the very quality that makes them so heroic is

runs through Shakespeare, through modern cinema, through, I mean, even analysis of like modern athletes.

Every story about a brilliant person brought down by their own nature.

And the phrase Trojan horse, I mean, you've obviously heard this, right?

This has taken on a brand new life.

In military strategy, it means a deceptive tactic, getting inside your enemy's defenses, but appearing harmless.

In cybersecurity, a Trojan horse is literally malware disguised as like an actual software that basically poisons your computer.

So every time a security analyst talks about a Trojan, they're literally referencing this 3,000-year-old story from Homer.

Plus, Hollywood.

I mean, they're obsessed with this.

Brad Pitt plays Achilles in the 2004 film Troy.

The story's been adapted into television and paintings and video games.

I mean, everywhere.

Achilles and Hector are just like the ultimate...