[Kinship] Erohir: My blueberry muffins are so, blueberrily.
[To Kinship] Do they smell like death?
Aeargalad defeated the Quicksilver Cave-crawler.
[Kinship] Insidiose: Ew.
[Kinship] Erohir: No, they smell of life.
[Kinship] Kevolas: from our heroes dangerous ventures into the realm of the mound wights, kevolas proudly holds up a broken dagger
[Kinship] Erohir: A life that passionately follows the way of the sword
You clap your hands.
[Kinship] Kevolas: its small, bone white, and has been obviously used for centuries and centuries
You cheer.
Zannoette defeated the Quicksilver Cave-crawler.
Sulaniel defeated the Quicksilver Cave-crawler.

(This is a post about my University of Connecticut course (Gaming) Homer, which I’m running on the Windfola server of LOTRO. See this post for more information.)

One of the things that I want my students to learn about in any course about homeric epic, whether taught traditionally or taught in practomimetic format, is the split between different versions of the epic tradition that clearly occurs very early on in the history of epic storytelling. Indeed, the split is there from the earliest records we have of the tradition—the Iliad and the Odyssey themselves. The simplest way to talk about that split is as the difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey—something that’s evident to even the completely untrained reader of the two epics. Indeed, the enormous difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey poses an equally enormous problem for anyone trying to say that epic has been, or should be, one thing or another.

What students don’t know, usually, until I tell them, though, is that the Iliad/Odyssey split is clearly a record of a split between the people who sang them into existence—the bards. It’s an old pedagogical chestnut to talk about the way Odysseus’ meeting with Achilles in the underworld in Book 11 of the Odyssey shows that the bards—or, usually in middle school, the “poet” or even the “author” or “writer”—of the Odyssey had it in mind to criticize the Iliad—or, again, the “author” of the Iliad. Odysseus meets the shade of Achilles, and Achilles tells him, more or less, that he’d rather be alive and helping his father than have died at Troy.

It’s usually a revelation to students, though, when I tell them that Book 9 of the Iliad, one of the most famous of all the books, and one of the acknowledged “Great Moments of Western Literature,” in which Achilles tells his fellow lords and the bards’ audience that he has the famous choice between dying at Troy and winning undying glory and going home and being forgotten, is in fact a response to that moment in Book 11 of the Odyssey. I admit it, I like seeing the looks of incredulity on their faces—”Bububububut the Odyssey is later!” they cry.

It may well be that more of the Odyssey is later than more of the Iliad. But not Book 9. In Book 9, Achilles says to Odysseus, right before he delivers the speech about his choice, that he detests a liar “like the Gates of Hades.” Who’s the greatest liar in history? That’s right: Odysseus. Why the reference to the Gates of Hades unless the audience is supposed to think of Odysseus’ trip to the underworld?

What we have, then, is dueling banjos. Er, lyres. The bards went at it, and they went at it hard. And now I’m making my students go at it that way in LOTRO.

(Not PvP, of course! If my students are engaging in Monster Play, they’re not telling me about it.)

In the Alternate-Reality world of the course, where the students are recruits in the ancient guild of the Homerids, an Odyssean rebellion, led by a character called the Homerid Secunda (here’s her first “secret video”), has taken over the guild, jamming the Homerid Prime’s transmissions and rendering him able to communicate only through intermittent and corrupt (l@$e thi$s) messages. The Homerid Prime stands with Achilles, the Iliad, and death-and-glory, the Homerid Secunda with Odysseus, the Odyssey, and getting-home-any-way-you-can. The apprentic bards (that is, the students) have been forced to choose sides in the conflict, and have been given different versions of their bardic missions according to their sides.

Sunday night, we were in-game to carry out a mission about gear and ecphrasis. (Ecphrasis is this thing epic tends to do where the story stops and there’s a long description of something like a shield.) Two top-ranked homerids were in-game: Insidiose, one of the lyres of the Homerid Secunda, and Beregar (whose chat-log is above and below), lyre of a mole within the rebellion, still loyal to the Homerid Prime. (The Homerids call toons “lyres,” to reflect their belief that player-characters are the epic tools of today’s bards.)

Here’s Beregar delivering an example of an ecphrasis, and not disguising his true loyalties very well:

[Kinship] Insidiose: Hey Beragar, you’re late.
[To Kinship] Apologies
You kneel.
[Kinship] Insidiose: Beregar, can you do an xample ekphrasis for everyone?
[To Kinship] I?
[To Kinship] Alright. Just a moment
[To Kinship] Follow me, please.
Zokahr does a flip!
[Kinship] Insidiose: Well, since you didn’t think you needed to be here for the instructions, you must know what to do, right?
[Kinship] Zannoette: so
Your mighty blow defeated the Cliff Hendroval.
You’ve earned 10 XP for a total of 81,911 XP.
[Kinship] Zannoette: where are we going?
You have acquired a [Dirty Wing].
[Kinship] Aeargalad: Follow
[To Kinship] Look at my Dirty Wing!
[Kinship] Erohir: i lost everyone… which direction?
[To Kinship] This Dirty Wing has dirty feathers!
[To Kinship] Like someone who decides to desert their comrades
[To Kinship] when their comrades need them
[To Kinship] and go home, leaving his men behind
[To Kinship] Dirty, dirty, dirty
Zannoette begins to smoke.
[To Kinship] Look at my Dirty Wing, which ame
[To Kinship] came from a dirty bird
[To Kinship] dirty like someone who values his own
[To Kinship] life more than his glory
[To Kinship] How was that?
Floaty names are now OFF.
[Kinship] Insidiose: Not bad!
Aeargalad claps his hands.
You kneel before Aeargalad.
Insidiose congratulates Beregar for a job well done.
[Kinship] Aeargalad: So, we do that, but then…
[To Kinship] You need not do it exactly that way

The ecphrases of the apprentice bards included a description of a broken knife taken from a wight, and a description of a very fine blueberry muffin–see the top of the post for a taste. Until next time, may the Muse be with you.