The movie Troy is partially based on the Iliad by Homer. Brad Pitt plays the infamous Achilles, the Greek hero at the center of the story. The death of Achilles is not covered in the Illiad. Who killed Achilles in Troy?
While there is no definitive answer on who killed Achilles, the movie Troy used the popular belief amongst historians that he was killed by Paris. Orlando Bloom plays the character who delivers the deadly arrow into Achilles’ heel.
There have been a couple of different versions of who killed Achilles and what the circumstances were. The one common part of the story is that he died by being shot by an arrow in his heel, and thus the name of the tendon.
Concept of Troy
The main concept of Troy is based on the Trojan War. However, in actuality, the war lasted over a decade, and the time span of the movie was just a few weeks or so. The main focus of the movie was the rift between Achilles and Hector, played by Eric Bana, and the battle that would end both of them.
Homer’s Illiad did not cover the end of the Trojan War, so the movie loosely followed the ending given by Quintus Smyrnaeus in his poem Posthomerica. This is where the deaths of Hector and Achilles were explained.
Woven within the battle are the stories that brought Achilles to fight against Hector. One of the main ones being that Paris, Hector’s younger brother, played by Orlando Bloom, was having an affair with the Queen of Sparta.
Pitt’s character Achilles was a warrior for Agamemnon, brother to Menelaus the King of Sparta, and husband to Queen Helen, of the aforementioned affair. They agreed to take Troy, where Paris had smuggled Queen Helen in an escape from her husband.
In reality, this storyline was based on something that happened within the ninth or tenth year of the Trojan War, which began as a feud between goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite and the Apple of Discord. Which was supposedly an apple that was to be given to the fairest of all.
Paris was given the task of choosing, and he chose Aphrodite. She then created Helen, whom she had fall in love with Paris and ran away with him.
The Trojan War remains one of Greek Mythology’s most important points in history, however, there is no known evidence of its historical accuracy, though there has been much written about it throughout ancient Greek times.
Bloom’s Paris
Orlando Bloom’s character, Paris, is portrayed as being cowardly and unskilled, needing the protection of his big brother Hector. The use of bow and arrow by Paris, which Bloom was already skilled in thanks to his role as Legolas in the Lord of the Rings, was also thought to be cowardly. The belief was that real men fought with the sword, in close quarters battle.
Originally folklore has it that Paris was never supposed to be allowed to live. It was foretold before his birth that Troy would fall because of him. After his birth, it was ordered that he be murdered. The one who was tasked to do the deed was unable to kill an infant and left him alone on the mountainside, where he was surprised over a week later when he went back, to find the baby still alive. He brought him back to Troy where he raised him as his own.
It was later determined who he was and that he was actually the son of the King and Queen of Troy. It was his unwavering morals and honesty that led him to be chosen with the task of deciding who was the fairest in the land.
In the end, he becomes a hero to the people of Troy, as he is the one who takes down Achilles. In a twist of fate that can only be found in soap operas, it turns out that after his death, Helen ended up marrying one of Paris’ brothers.