Odysseus Hero Quotes

Everyone has their favorite super hero, whether it be Superman, Batman, or even Ironman. These heros helped anyone they saw in need, even if it put themselves in danger. People describe them as brave, daring, and trustworthy. This is not how I would describe Odysseus from the book The Odyssey by Homer, everyone always thought of Odysseus as the “hero” of the story, but he was quite the opposite. He does not deserve the credit for his getting home from the war at all. Odysseus doesn’t deserve the title of a hero because he made bad decisions that affected his crew poorly, Athena did almost all of the work in getting him home, and he cheated on his wife multiple times throughout his journey home.
My first reason why Odysseus does not deserve the title of a hero is because he made

One bad decision that Odysseus was made when he decided to sail towards Scylla and Charybdis when he could have sailed the other option, “One ship alone, one deep-sea craft sailed clear,/ the Argo sung by the world, when heading home/ from Aeetes’ shores” (12. 76-78). This quote shows that there was one ship that sailed past the Clashing Rocks unharmed. Odysseus could have chosen to sail this path, but he didn’t. A real hero would have taken the route that wouldn’t have killed any of his crew like the route with Scylla and Charybdis did. Another example of a bad decision Odysseus made was when he made his crew stay in polyphemus’ cave, when they wanted to take the food and leave. Here is an example of someone on his crew discussing this, “Let 's make away with the cheeses, then come back-/ hurry, drive the lambs and kids from the pens/ to our swift ship, put out to sea at once!/ But I would not give way-” (9. 252-255). If Odysseus was a good leader he wouldn’t have risked anything happening to his crew, he would have just taken the food and left. As a result of this bad choice, many men in Odysseus’ crew were killed and eaten by Polyphemus. One final example of a bad decision