The Odyssey Theme of Fate and Free Will

In the Odyssey, fate and free will are not mutually exclusive concepts. Men may be destined to specific ends, but their personal choices alter the road they take to get there. The same freedom applies to the gods, who have a lot of leaway in how they bring about what is fated. Because the gods of ancient Greece are endowed with human characteristics, their will is subject to the same fickle and petty attributes of human emotion. Because of this hodge-podge of factors, the Greeks had a very different view from the one we have in mind when we think of destiny as fixed and constant.

1. It’s clear that Odysseus is responsible for his own actions and their results. It’s also clear that certain events are fated to happen from the start. How are both of these possible in the Odyssey?
2. What is the difference between "fate" and "luck" in the Odyssey? When do the characters ascribe events to the former, and when to the latter, and why?
3. At what point does divine intervention strip the characters of their ability to act and think for themselves? Can we draw much of a line between, say, the ideas that Athene puts in Odysseus’s head and the ideas that he devises on his own?
4. Why does Poseidon persist in harassing Odysseus if he is destined to go home? What might he gain from pursuing a seemingly futile endeavor?

Odysseus’s men brought about their own dooms by killing the sacred cattle of Helios; they deserved the deaths dealt to them.

Odysseus’s men did not deserve death; they were merely innocent victims of circumstance.