Odyssey

July 19, 2026
By Aathreya Kadambi

I just watched the Odyssey (movie), and it gave me a super different perspective on the story than when I read the book.

And since I’ve been long wanting to write a post on how I feel about god, I thought this was the perfect opportunity.

Spoiler Alert, Do NOT read beyond this line if you don’t want spoilers.

Life of Pi

When watching the movie, beyond the normal storyline from the book and fun modern adaptations of the language, the thing that struck me most was its striking resemblance to Life of Pi, at least thematically. There were storms, fantastical elements, and a character deeply traumatized by the events of the story (and even a tiger).

But even forgetting the visual similarity, I noticed that the movie made much more of an effort to make it plausible that the gods weren’t real at all. Here are some things that made me feel that way:

• Athena is depicted as the face of one of the victims (I think Cassandra) in the war, making Athena feel much more personal to Odysseus than in the book. It might also be a nod to some other artwork and retellings though…
• Odysseus practically admits once that he couldn’t return to Ithaca not because of being trapped, but rather that he was guilty. This felt like he was using the gods as symbolic protection from the truth: he stayed away for long years because he was too afraid to go home, even though he wanted to.
• The emphasis on Sinon was interesting and different from the original story: the way he tells Odysseus to exaggurate his adventures after death, and the way Odysseus makes venging Sinon a core part of the story.
• Zeus and Poseidon letting Odysseus pass after he accepts his guilt makes it feel like maybe they were never really there, and Odysseus was using them to cover his own guilt.

It just made me wonder. Was Calypso real? Or was it Odysseus’s way of explaining a reality that was too difficult for himself to cope with? Were there really giant men, cyclops, and a witch? Or were those a way of honoring the men who died for him and censoring the brutality of how they really died?

I just feel that some writers tend to write first for themselves, then for other people. They write as a form of self-discovery and self-honesty, because humans don’t experience reality in truths. Writing truths necessitates sitting down, confronting, and re-interpreting oneself to find a meaning, which can be painful.

Just like in Life of Pi, expressing those truths can require censorship (for the author, but also to guide the listener to a discovery). And in the movie, the fantastical elements felt just like that: censorship to protect brutal parts of the story that the writer simply could not tell. And simultaneously, a way of emphasizing the adventure to honor those who could not live to tell the tale.

So overall, the movie kind of made me feel: fantastical elements in the Odyssey could have been creative censorship for the people who truly lived the tale.

And maybe that’s true for other mythologies as well.

Thoughts on god

Overall, it made me think again about the role god plays in our lives. When I first read the Odyssey, the thing that honestly stuck with me most was the idea of Athena putting wisdom into people’s minds. It was like a fantastic way of expressing an idea without admitting or claiming it as one’s own.

After a lot of thought, I’ve accepted that god has various roles in human life, at a personal level and sociologically. At a personal level, religion can offer hope, comfort, and motivation. And at a sociological level, it helps develop strong, trust-based organizations where accumulated power can then be invested into developing society and making life better for everyone.

I want to make life better for myself and other people. So why not become actively religious?

Despite the clear benefits, religion can be equally negative at both a personal and sociological level. Belief in god can prevent people from exploring truths and questioning reality. That’s not so bad, but the sociological implications can be far worse. When those in power of major religious organizations implement ideas that are inherently wrong or corrupt, it often ends up being at a larger scale than an individual person, and lasts far longer in cultural memory.

And that’s exactly the problem: great power requires great responsibility. And being elected to power in a religious organization isn’t always a meaningful signal of responsibility. Does it make sense for me to associate with religions that have acted irresponsibly in the past, rather than just forming new groups?

I think that’s what I realized when I questioned why I wanted to do a PhD. I found myself thinking that it was desirable because the people who I’d work with had signaled responsibility through the act of committing to scientific or academic (truth-seeking) values. That I could trust academic institutions to protect and support my values over any other institutions (religious or otherwise).

The truth I’ve felt more recently is that life is more complicated, and that there is no real proof of responsibility. Sociologically, faith in any organization seems identical to me. And personally, belief in god doesn’t have many advantages over any other philosophical belief.

So why god? I’d rather just find or create an organization that truly reflects my values. And at a personal level, math and science form the basis of my philosophy.