[throwaway3060]

I am not an expert in this space, so hopefully an actual expert will come by and clarify, but I am pretty sure that "The current consensus [...] is that there was no such thing as ‘the sea peoples’" is just flat out untrue. (IIUC, what is the current consensus is that they did not "cause" the late bronze age collapse). That colors how I read the rest of the review.

Edit: Personally, I enjoyed that particular addition to the plotline, as unrealistic as it is.

[ctchocula]

[1] is a nice intro into what the current scientific consensus in what caused the Bronze Age collapse is, written by historian Bret Devereaux. The view he paints pretty much aligns with what Wilson wrote about there being no such thing as the "sea people".

[1] https://acoup.blog/2026/01/30/collections-the-late-bronze-ag...

[adrian_b]

Yes, while I agree with most of the criticism about the movie, that sentence has also stricken me as incorrect.

It is not known who the "sea people" were, e.g. whether they were invaders coming from far away or they were just some poorer local populations that had revolted in a time of famine, but what is known for sure is that a lot of cities around the Eastern Mediterranean have been destroyed and burned during several decades, and this has resulted in the disappearance of several centralized kingdoms, leaving only a few surviving big states, i.e. Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, while everywhere else no central authorities remained and the territories were fragmented into small independent parts, consisting mostly of a city and its neighborhoods.

[ButlerianJihad]

This may blow your mind, but what if the "People From the Sea" are Odysseus, his family, and his crew?

* It was Penelope herself who voiced her fear of the People From the Sea. Did anyone outside of this group mention the People From the Sea? Was anyone outside of the group anticipating, terrified, or already terrorized by some other group?

* Ithaca is an island kingdom; anyone who lives there is a sailor by experience, and all of Greece is a region of islands and archipelagos

* Odysseus and his crew had not seen them or found them, because they are not sufficiently self-aware or spiritual

* They violated the Law of Zeus. All of them.

* That's why the Trojan Horse didn't have wheels. It was terrible to drag across dry land, but it was made of buoyant wood. It was a seahorse.

* Everyone they met, from the Trojans to Circe to Calypso and the Cyclopes, obesrved them to approach from the sea, land on the shore, and leave the same way

* They (Odysseus and his family) ultimately attacked Ithaca (the suitors)

* Odysseus, his wife and son go into exile by boat, and sail west, [beyond Gibraltar], thus permanently becoming People Of The Sea

* The Odyssey is a myth, fiction, legendary, and none of its characters actually existed

* The People From the Sea are not mentioned in Homer's text. They're extra-canonical. They were hypothesized, starting in the 19th century.

[adrian_b]

They were not hypothesized.

The term "Sea People" or "People of the Sea" has been taken from Egyptian documents that described a series of battles for defending Egypt against them.

Egypt succeeded to repel them, but other regions were not so lucky, because around the same time a lot of cities were destroyed. Because of the coincidence in time, it is assumed that the Egyptians have fought against the same people who destroyed the other cities.

There are also documents from Ugarit, written immediately before that city was destroyed, which requested help because they expected an imminent attack, but it was too late and the city was destroyed before receiving any help.

The documents do not contain enough information to identify who were the attackers, but there is no doubt that attacks existed and they destroyed many cities in Greece, Crete, Anatolia and in the territory of modern Syria.

[ButlerianJihad]

So they were polytropized

[watwut]

Willson is actual expert.

I also think that it is ok to be unrealistic in myth movie.

[throwaway3060]

I thought she would be, but apparently classicist and historian have less overlap than I'd have assumed. I don't know how else to explain this one, I was shocked when I read that line.

r/askhistorians, which as far as I know is reliable, does not seem to dispute that they at least existed. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1mwbdpd/why_...

Edit: Charitably, it could be awkward phrasing - not that the sea peoples didn't exist, but that the whole hypothesis around them is believed to be off.